Unicaus NEWS
Jyoti Bansal sold his first company to Cisco, and his second startup recently raised $240 million.
Jyoti Bansal, a new billionaire. (LinkedIn/Jyoti Bansal)
Who is Jyoti Bansal?
Bansal, who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, grew up in a small town in Rajasthan. He recalled that a visit to an IIT campus by Bill Gates and the success of alum Sabeer Bhatia, cofounder of Hotmail, inspired him to start his entrepreneurial journey. “That’s what brought me to Silicon Valley,”
Also Read: Indian billionaire with $5.9 billion net worth takes a bus in Dubai, video goes viral
When did he relocate to the USA?
With a few hundred dollars, Bansal relocated to California at the age of 21. There, he spent seven years working as an engineer for tech companies that sponsored his H-1B visa, according to the outlet.
“The challenge unfortunately is if you’re on an H1-B visa, you’re not allowed to start a company and create more jobs, which I find very ironic,” he told Forbes, adding, “I had to wait for some time until I got a green card.” He became an American citizen in 2016.
What is Jyoti Bansal’s net worth?
Harness raised a $240 million Series E round from Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Institutional Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures, reported Forbes.
According to the outlet, Bansal’s estimated net worth is around $2.3 billion, largely due to his 30% stake in Harness. He also received cash from the sale of AppDynamics, his first company, to Cisco in 2017.
Why did he start Harness?
After selling his first company, Bansal was on a world tour when he realised he had nothing left on his bucket list, reported Forbes. He told the outlet, “I tried to retire.”
The billionaire added, “People say, ‘Once I retire, I’m going to do what I enjoy.’ I asked myself, ‘Do I enjoy playing golf all the time or being on the beach all the time?’ I don’t really. I realized why not just go back to what I enjoy, building a company.”
Also Read: Indian-American school friends become world’s youngest self-made billionaires
“The problem I was fascinated with at AppDynamics was when you ship software and a glitch happens or an outage happens, [our software] helps them fix it,” he said, adding, “People don’t often realize writing code is just the first 30% of the job. Then you have the next 70% of the job to make sure you test that code properly.”
