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Devpost

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Devpost (formerly ChallengePost) is a platform that helps software engineers participate in software competitions (hackathons) and find engineering jobs. Customers market their developer tools and jobs to the Devpost community. The company was founded by Brandon Kessler in 2009.

Origin

In 2006, Colin Nederkoorn initiated a public contest prompting programmers to develop a means for running the Windows XP operating system through an Intel Mac. Programmer Jesus Lopez eventually won the competition, which had accumulated over $13,000 in donations. [1] Seeing this competition, Kessler soon developed ChallengePost as a means through which similar competitions could be facilitated and promoted.[2]

At first, the company allowed any individual or organization to post a competition. Over time, their scope evolved. In 2015, ChallengePost changed its name to Devpost and focused exclusively on helping software engineers participate in hackathons, and eventually to find jobs.

Funding

In June 2009, ChallengePost raised $500,000 through angel investors including Esther Dyson, Personal Democracy Forum founder Andrew Rasiej, betaworks, Scott Kurnit, Jason Calacanis, Rose Tech Ventures, PKS Capital, Andrew Rasiej, Coriolis Ventures, Gerry Campbell, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. [3]

In August 2011, ChallengePost raised $4.6 million in Series A funding from investors including former Apple executive Bob Borchers of Opus Capital and Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs.[4]

Hackathons and Jobs

Devpost now powers the majority of the world's in-person and online hackathons (software competitions), and helps software engineers find jobs, in service of the company's mission "To help developers find fulfilling work."

Notable clients

In 2010, ChallengePost was named the official online "challenge platform" of the U.S. federal government, previously overseeing the NYC Big Apps contest in conjunction with the city of New York, as well as Michelle Obama's Apps for Healthy Kids challenge in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.[5] (Challenge.gov).

Devpost customers include Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Atlassian, Twitter, and others.

References

  1. ^ Kim-Mai Cutler, "ChallengePost launches problem-solving site with Wozniak, Betaworks onboard", Venture Beat, June 29, 2009
  2. ^ Lydia Dishman (November 29, 2010). "Innovation Agents: Brandon Kessler, Founder ChallengePost". Fast Company.
  3. ^ http://www.crunchbase.com/company/challengepost ,CrunchBase ChallengePost profile, accessed May 16, 2013
  4. ^ Peter Kafka, "Crowdsourcing Platform ChallengePost Raises $4 Million", All Things D, August 8, 2011
  5. ^ Erick Schonfeld, "ChallengePost Becomes A Government Contractor", TechCrunch, May 27, 2010
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