LinearBytes Inc., which operates developer-focussed blogging platform and community Hashnode, has raised $2.1 million (Rs 15.44 crore at current exchange rates) in a funding round.
The round in the US- and Bengaluru-based startup has been led by Surge, the accelerator programme of marquee venture capital investor Sequoia Capital India. The company is also part of the fourth cohort of Surge.
Other participants in this round include Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham, AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant, BrowserStack founders Ritesh Arora and Nakul Aggarwal, and Razorpay founders Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur.
BlackType’s Christopher Golda, Pluralsight’s Ed Roman, Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch, and Uncorrelated Ventures’ Salil Deshpande also took part in the exercise, Hashnode said in a statement.
Hashnode was set up in June this year by Sandeep Panda and Syed Fazle Rahman. The startup says its platform helps developers and engineering teams start technical blogs and share them with the broader developer community.
It claims its blogs are easy to use and set up, are highly optimised for search engine optimisation (SEO), and have built-in community interaction features such as reactions, comments, and bookmarks.
“We realised many writers just want a platform that helps them focus on writing and gives them the freedom to blog without losing control over their content or thinking about traffic and SEO,” Rahman, who is Hashnode’s CEO, said.
The company claims it has over 20,000 active blogs and more than five lakh monthly active users, and that its platform is growing by 25% on a month-on-month basis.
The investment in Hashnode is the latest for Surge, which focusses on startups in India and Southeast Asia. It provides $1-2 million of seed capital to a firm, along with company-building workshops and mentor-based support.
Last month, Surge participated in a $4.1 million funding round in Plum Benefits Pvt. Ltd, which operates an eponymous insurance startup that helps companies set up group programmes. Other participants included IF India Partnership, Tanglin Ventures, AngelList and some angel investors.
In April, it invested $2 million in online fitness portal Fittr, which raised the capital as part of its pre-Series A round.
Surge’s other portfolio companies include the Singapore-based networking and mentorship platform Tigerhall Pte Ltd, software-as-a-service platform Convosight, lifestyle community commerce platform Trell, video editing platform InVideo, and education-technology firm ClassPlus.
