The Russian startup Geecko (Resident of the Skolkovo Foundation), which develops a platform for hiring programmers, has raised $1 million from the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF) and a group of private investors, the fund's press service reported.

The attracted investments will be used to support the company's active growth and develop sales in the US market.

“We have known the team for a long time and will support them in their further development,” said IIDF investment manager Vadim Kazinets.

Geecko solves the problem of hiring IT- specialists through the development of their own developer relations platform. According to the company, the platform allows to reduce the cost of attracting and testing the skills of a specialist in comparison with traditional methods of hiring (recruiting, headhunting). This happens through the use of alternative channels for attracting candidates (HR marketing activities, creating games to test the skills of developers, etc.)

The main client of the startup is a large business with a high need for annual hiring of programmers. Geecko partners include Sberbank, Electrolux, Luxoft and Cisco.

In 2021, the startup passed the American accelerator Alchemist and began selling in the US market. According to the company's own data for 2021, Geecko quadrupled in revenue year-on-year.

The startup was launched in 2018 by IT entrepreneurs Maxim Meshcheryakov, Nikita Obukhov and Ilya Sergeenko, who is also a co-founder of Tickets Cloud, a marketplace for the ticket market.