# Aravind Bala

> Aravind Bala is the co-founder and CEO of SeekOut, the Bellevue recruiting technology company that grew from a failed messaging idea into an AI talent platform. An engineer educated at IIT Bombay and Ohio State, he spent roughly 16 years at Microsoft working across natural-language interfaces, Office, Bing advertising, relevance, personalization and incubation projects before leaving with longtime colleague Anoop Gupta. SeekOut has since raised more than $189 million, reached a $1.2 billion valuation in 2022, and now says its platform searches more than one billion candidate profiles for over 750 customers.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at SeekOut
- **Organizations:** SeekOut, Nextio, Microsoft, TiE Seattle
- **Education:** B.Tech., Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Master's degree, Computer Science, The Ohio State University
- **Known for:** Co-founded SeekOut and led its product and engineering organization from the 2017 pivot through its growth into an enterprise AI recruiting platform., Helped build a platform that SeekOut says searches more than one billion candidate profiles and serves more than 750 customers., Helped take SeekOut to a $1.2 billion valuation after a $115 million Series C in January 2022; the company says it has raised more than $189 million overall.

## Career timeline

- **1999-2000** — Worked as a software design engineer in Microsoft's Natural Language Group.
- **2000-2001** — Joined advertising analytics startup Paramark; returned to Microsoft after the dot-com downturn and layoffs.
- **2001-2015** — Built and led engineering across Microsoft natural-user-interface, Windows, OfficeLabs, Bing and Office teams, ultimately serving as partner engineering manager.
- **2015** — Left Microsoft with Anoop Gupta to pursue a startup before the pair had settled on a product idea.
- **2016-2017** — Co-founded Nextio, a messaging platform that paid recipients for attention; its Career Insights feature exposed stronger demand from recruiters.
- **2017** — Pivoted the company into SeekOut and became co-founder and CTO, leading product and engineering.
- **2019** — SeekOut raised a $6 million Series A; reporting at the time counted 12 employees and more than 75 enterprise customers.
- **2021** — SeekOut raised a $65 million Series B at roughly a $500 million valuation after reporting more than tenfold ARR growth since its Series A.
- **2022** — SeekOut raised a $115 million Series C at a $1.2 billion valuation.
- **2023-present** — Serves as a TiE Seattle program chair for the TiE Young Entrepreneurs program.
- **2026** — Published 'Becoming AI Forward,' arguing that taste, judgment and ambition gain importance as AI bridges skill gaps; SeekOut's current leadership page lists him as co-founder and CEO.

## Achievements

- Co-founded SeekOut and led its product and engineering organization from the 2017 pivot through its growth into an enterprise AI recruiting platform.
- Helped build a platform that SeekOut says searches more than one billion candidate profiles and serves more than 750 customers.
- Helped take SeekOut to a $1.2 billion valuation after a $115 million Series C in January 2022; the company says it has raised more than $189 million overall.
- Spent roughly 16 years engineering and managing Microsoft products including natural-language interfaces, Windows, Office, Bing advertising, relevance and search personalization.
- Named inventor on Microsoft patents involving application-command search, active-content wizards, automatic text generation and search personalization.
- Earned a Deep Learning Specialization certificate through Coursera in 2020.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — SeekOut's current leadership page lists Aravind Bala as co-founder and CEO.
- **2026-06** — SeekOut highlighted his earlier Microsoft work across Bing ads, ad relevance and search personalization in a company founder profile.
- **2026-03** — Published the essay 'Becoming AI Forward,' arguing that AI is shifting hiring value from static skills toward taste, judgment and ambition.

## Links

- Website: https://www.seekout.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aravindbala
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/seekouthq
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/seekouthq/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/aravind-bala
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27