H1-B to $5.5B: Harness raises $200M at $5.5B valuation, making founder Jyoti Bansal a new billionaire.

Harness automates software deployment with AI. Customers like United Airlines see 75% faster deployments. Growing 50% YoY with $250M+ revenue.

Bansal's playbook:
• Moved from India with few hundred dollars on H1-B
• Worked 7 years as engineer waiting for green card
• Built AppDynamics, sold to Cisco for $3.7B in 2017
• Got bored on safari after 6 months of retirement
• Founded Harness to solve adjacent problem in same domain
• Now worth $2.3B personally

Key insight: "Writing code is 30% of the job. Testing and deploying is 70%."

Serial founders with domain expertise build faster.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonemelvin/2025/12/11/how-this-indian-immigrant-went-from-an-h1-b-visa-to-building-a-55-billion-business/

Brewed by Startup Beaker.