What Rounds does

Rounds Technologies, Inc. operates a talent intelligence platform that combines AI-powered candidate evaluation with a recruiter marketplace, founded in 2023 by Fardeen Khimani and Emilio Van Cotthem and headquartered in Atlanta with a San Francisco office. The core product, Evaluate, is positioned as the world's first AI-allowed work trial simulator: candidates complete 30-90 minute simulations mirroring real engineering work, including coding, AI usage, communication, and judgment, with objective scoring across these dimensions. At the center of the platform is Sophia, a proprietary AI model that sources candidates, conducts evaluations, and continuously learns from hiring outcomes to improve predictions on job and company fit.

The company's revenue model is dual-track. On the subscription side, Evaluate is offered at $199/month (Basic, 10 assessments), $399/month (Premium, 25 assessments with AI reporting and nationwide benchmarks), and custom Enterprise pricing with unlimited assessments, custom ATS integrations, and dedicated account management. On the transactional side, the Hire product operates as a full-service recruiting solution with success-based placement fees of 25-35% of first-year salary, paired with replacement guarantees of 90-270 days. Rounds serves two primary segments: early-stage startups (seed to Series B) needing fast founding-to-senior hires, and Fortune 100 enterprises building AI-native teams, supplemented by investor-backed portfolio companies (Sequoia, Pear VC, Z Fellows) accessed through partnership channels.

Distribution is heavily community- and partner-led, leveraging eleven strategic alliances including NeetCode (1M+ engineers), Wellfound (10M+ candidates), BobaTalks (13,000+ members), The Residency (120+ active portcos, $1.2B aggregate funding), and Aman Manazir's career coaching network (100K+ followers). The company maintains a private talent pipeline of 20K+ vetted engineers and GTM professionals, supports integrations with Greenhouse, Lever, and Ashby ATS platforms, and reports operational metrics including 98% placement success, 90%+ roles filled in 2-4 weeks, 100% retention of placements, and a 21-day average from brief to signed offer for Sequoia portfolio companies.

Name

Rounds

Legal name

Rounds Technologies, Inc.

Website

https://rounds.so

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Rounds is an AI-native talent intelligence platform offering AI-allowed work trial simulations and a recruiter marketplace to evaluate and place engineering and GTM talent. It serves early-stage startups through Fortune 100 enterprises via subscription and success-based placement pricing.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

AI Recruiting Software

NAICS

Employment Placement Agencies (561311)

SIC

Services-Employment Agencies (7361), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)

akta.pro primary industry

Skills Assessment & Talent/Employability Testing Platforms (EDAFADAM)

akta.pro secondary industries

Agents & Autonomous Workflows (Tool Use, Planning, Multi-Agent) (HDAAACAF), Model Testing, Validation & Quality Assurance (HDAAABAH), End-to-End Enterprise AI Platforms (MLOps & Model Lifecycle Management) (HDAEANAA)

Keywords

• AI recruiting platform
• Talent intelligence software
• Work trial evaluation
• Recruitment technology
• Candidate assessment platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Atlanta

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Recruitment/Placement Fees: Success-based fee calculated as percentage of candidate's first-year salary. Companies only pay when they make a hire. This aligns Rounds' incentives with client success. Two pricing tiers: Tier 1 Standard (25% placement fee, 90-day guarantee) and Tier 2 Extended (35% placement fee, 270-day guarantee). Placement fee ranges from 5% to 50% of base salary depending on engagement type.
2. Evaluation Platform Subscriptions: Monthly subscription plans for companies using Rounds' AI work trial technology. Basic plan includes 10 assessments/month at $199/mo; Premium plan includes 25 assessments/month at $399/mo with AI reporting and nationwide benchmarks; Enterprise plan offers unlimited assessments with custom reporting and integrations.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Rounds operates an AI-powered talent intelligence platform that helps companies source, evaluate, and hire engineering and GTM talent. The core offerings are (1) the Evaluate product, which runs 30-90 minute AI-allowed work trial simulations mirroring real engineering work, and (2) the Hire product, a full-service recruiting service backed by a private pipeline of 20,000+ vetted candidates and an internal recruiter network. The underlying Sophia AI model continuously learns from hiring outcomes to improve candidate-job matching and evaluation accuracy.

Product overview

Rounds is a talent intelligence platform that combines AI-powered evaluation technology with a recruiter marketplace. The core offering consists of the Evaluate product (AI-allowed work trial simulator for candidate assessment) and the Hire product (full-service recruiting with access to a private talent pipeline of 20K+ vetted professionals). At the center is Sophia, a proprietary AI model that sources, screens, and evaluates candidates through 30-90 minute work trials. The platform is offered through three pricing tiers (Basic at $199/month, Premium at $399/month, and Enterprise with custom pricing), serving companies seeking to hire and evaluate engineering and GTM talent, with separate interfaces for recruiters and candidates.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Evaluate (Work Trial Simulator) AI-allowed work trial platform that enables companies to evaluate candidates through 30-90 minute simulations mirroring real engineering work, including coding, AI usage, and communication tasks. Includes objective scoring, code attribution analysis, and nationwide benchmarking. Targeted at engineering managers and HR/talent teams hiring at scale.
• Hire (Recruiting Service) Full-service AI-powered recruiting solution providing companies with access to a private pipeline of 20,000+ vetted engineers and GTM talent, expert recruiters, and bespoke evaluation technology. Operates on success-based pricing with guarantees up to 9 months. Targets early-stage startups through Fortune 100 companies.
• Sophia (AI Model) Proprietary AI model that sources candidates, evaluates talent through work trials, and advises on hiring decisions. Continuously learns from hiring outcomes and becomes the system of record for hiring within client organizations.
• Recruiter Platform Platform for independent recruiters to source and submit candidates through Rounds' network, featuring role management, candidate tracking, and commission protection. Recruiters apply to join through structured onboarding.
• Candidate Platform Profile-based platform for engineering and GTM candidates to join Rounds' talent network, receive zero-click job matches, and access AI-powered recruiter competition for placement.

Quantifiable outcome

• 98% successful placement rate
• +8 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability6 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• BobaTalkscoreGTM or Marketing PartnerBobaTalks partnered with Rounds to give community members fast track into great companies. Free for BobaTalks community members (13,000+ worldwide). Rounds replaced resume screening with 30-minute work trial for BobaTalks community.
• The ResidencycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Residency's only official talent partner. Connects exceptional engineers, designers, and operators with 120+ active portfolio companies with $1.2B aggregate funding. 7-day median time from application to founder intro, 94% offer rate.
• ParsityminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership helping software engineers prove their skills through real work experience. Co-marketing partnership focused on technical skill demonstration.
• Aman Manazir / SWE AcceleratorcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerPartnership with YouTube career coach Aman Manazir (100K+ followers, 500+ jobs placed). SWE Accelerator members get built-in fast pass to startup roles with 1:1 interview coaching. Targets $100K-$200K+ roles.
• Software Engineering AcceleratorminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPartnership accelerating software engineers through hands-on experience. Part of broader ecosystem of talent partnerships.

Scale indicators19 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• Wellfound (AngelList Talent): Startup-focused job board and talent marketplace. Rounds is a Wellfound investor partner and integrates with Wellfound's 10M+ candidate network, but the platforms also overlap as discovery funnels for startup engineering roles.
• Triplebyte (archived/acquired): Historical direct competitor that ran a technical assessment marketplace plus recruiter funnel for software engineers. Important reference point because Rounds' combination of work trials plus recruiter marketplace mirrors Triplebyte's original model in an AI-native update.

Broad incumbents

• Indeed: Largest job-search and hiring platform, increasingly adding AI screening and assessment features. Broad incumbent competing for the same HR/talent team budget that Rounds targets with its Evaluate product.
• LinkedIn (Recruiter / Hiring Assistant): Dominant professional network with recruiting tools, AI-assisted candidate matching, and LinkedIn Hiring Assistant. Represents the broad incumbent Rounds must displace for enterprise sourcing and evaluation budgets.

Direct peers

• HackerRank: Developer assessment and skills-evaluation platform used by enterprises to screen candidates via coding tests. Rounds overlaps directly on AI-allowed technical assessment, with Rounds positioning itself as a work-trial-format evolution of HackerRank-style testing.
• Codility: Pre-employment skills-assessment platform for engineering hiring, providing coding tests and reporting for enterprise talent teams. Rounds competes for the same engineering-manager buyer with a more realistic work-trial format and AI-allowed environment.
• Karat: Technical interviewing-as-a-service company that runs live coding interviews on behalf of enterprises. Comparable to Rounds' Hire product in offering managed technical evaluation with guaranteed outcomes, though Karat focuses on synchronous interviews rather than AI-allowed work trials.
• TestGorilla: Pre-hire assessment platform offering multi-skill tests across coding, cognitive, and soft skills for SMB through enterprise. Direct competitor in the skills-assessment category, though Rounds differentiates via longer work trials and recruiter-marketplace revenue.
• Filtered: AI-enabled technical screening platform that evaluates engineering candidates through skills assessments. Competes for the same engineering-manager buyer and is converging on AI-driven evaluation similar to Rounds' Sophia.
• Pymetrics (Harver): Skills and behavioral assessment platform used in hiring across roles; acquired Pymetrics to add AI-based evaluation. Adjacent comparable for Rounds' objective scoring of candidate soft skills (communication, judgment) alongside technical execution.

Market position

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks1 record

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/rounds-so

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Rounds