Professional Overview
Jyoti Bansal is the Founder, CEO, and Co-Founder at Harness, a leading software delivery automation platform, and Traceable, an API security company. He also serves as a Co-Founder of the venture capital firm Unusual Ventures. Jyoti's leadership is characterized by serial entrepreneurship and strategic vision within the software engineering and DevOps domains. He is recognized as a multi-unicorn founder who has successfully built and scaled high-value technology companies.
Current Positions and Leadership Roles
- CEO & Co-Founder, Harness (Founded in 2017):
Harness is positioned as a Continuous Delivery-as-a-Service platform that enables engineering and DevOps teams to deploy software more efficiently and safely. Under Jyoti’s leadership, Harness achieved a valuation of $1.7 billion as of January 2021, with reported financing rounds reaching $150 million in debt financing in May 2024 through Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), indicating substantial investor confidence and growth potential.
- CEO & Co-Founder, Traceable (Founded in 2018):
Traceable specializes in API security, critical to modern software ecosystems. Jyoti orchestrated the merger of Harness and Traceable announced in February 2025, combining software delivery automation with next-generation API security solutions to offer a comprehensive AI-driven software delivery platform. This move reflects Jyoti’s strategic intent to capitalize on industry consolidation and emerging AI trends.
- Co-Founder, Unusual Ventures:
Jyoti is actively mentoring and investing in early-stage startups through this venture capital vehicle, leveraging his extensive operational experience.
Entrepreneurial Achievements and Background
- Jyoti previously founded AppDynamics, a widely recognized application performance monitoring software company, which was acquired by Cisco in 2017 for $3.7 billion—a landmark exit within the industry.
- He has been acclaimed with multiple leadership awards, including:
- Forbes’ Best Cloud Computing CEO to Work For
- Best CEO by San Francisco Business Times
- Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year for Northern California
- Holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi (Class of 1995), underscoring his strong technical foundation.
Company Performance & Growth Highlights
- Harness surpassed 44 million code deployments in 2023, doubling the prior year’s deployment volume, signaling rapid adoption of its platform.
- The company was recognized in Inc.’s Best Workplace Awards 2022, indicating a strong internal culture and employee engagement.
- Recent strategic initiatives under Jyoti’s guidance include:
- Acquisition of Drone.io, a continuous integration pioneer, in 2020, furthering Harness’s capabilities in the DevOps toolchain.
- Launch of AIDA™, a Generative AI assistant for the Software Development Life Cycle announced June 2023, positioning Harness at the forefront of AI adoption in software delivery.
- Jyoti is actively expanding Harness and Traceable’s technical workforce in India, targeting 1000 engineers to scale R&D and innovation efforts, demonstrating a clear commitment to leveraging global engineering talent.
Industry Positioning and Thought Leadership
- Jyoti frequently speaks at industry events and awards, including the theCUBEd Awards 2025, emphasizing his focus on product-market fit, scalable innovation, and software engineering excellence.
- He actively contributes thought leadership and technical insights on DevOps, continuous delivery, API security, and AI integration through platforms hosted by Harness and other venues.
- Jyoti champions the use of AI-driven automation to simplify and secure software delivery pipelines while addressing developer experience and enterprise challenges such as security, governance, and speed-to-market.
Recent Strategic Developments (2024–2025)
- The announced merger between Harness and Traceable (Feb 2025) is a pivotal industry event, aiming to shape the future of AI-driven software delivery by integrating continuous delivery with advanced API security—all led by Jyoti.
- Under Jyoti’s leadership, Harness has raised $150 million in debt financing in 2024, reflecting continued fundraising success and financial stability.
- Jyoti is spearheading efforts to grow operational scale and AI capabilities, positioning the combined entity to approach an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) target rumored to be around $250 million post-merger.
- Public commentary from Jyoti stresses customer discovery and product-market fit as core business drivers, highlighting his hands-on operational approach and market-driven strategy.
This profile synthesizes Jyoti Bansal’s leadership at Harness with a focus on scalable innovation, AI-enabled software delivery, and security, contextualized by his history of leading multi-billion dollar technology ventures. His strategy of combining Harness and Traceable signals an ambitious expansion into integrated software delivery and security platforms with significant growth momentum and technical expansion headed by increasing teams in India.
