Howdy.com

Market position

Following the GeekHunter acquisition, the company described itself as one of the largest tech-hiring service providers serving companies in North and South America. It appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private US companies in 2023 and 2024, on the Austin Business Journal's ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in Central Texas in 2023, and on Forbes' "America's Best Startup Employers" list in 2024.

Howdy.com positions itself against freelancer marketplaces by taking a human-centered, long-term placement approach: engineers are recruited from local tech communities rather than job-seeking freelancer pools, and are provided premium health insurance, Apple equipment, gym memberships, lunches and access to class-A office space. The company reports 98% retention and emphasizes time-zone alignment with US business hours, English proficiency and the ability for clients to directly manage their own Latin American engineering team.

Technology

The company operates a platform through which client companies hire individual engineers or assemble remote, hybrid or in-office teams, and manage remote equipment assets and benefits. The acquired GeekHunter platform is a talent marketplace with nearly 400,000 registered candidates and more than 13,000 registered companies in Brazil.

Go-to-market

The company sells directly to US technology employers, with early traction among Austin startups and the Y Combinator network following its participation in the Winter 2021 batch. It builds candidate supply through deep involvement in Latin American tech communities, hosting meetups and speaker events at its local Howdy House offices, and through GeekHunter's Brazilian marketplace of registered candidates and employers. Founder and CEO Jacqueline Samira has also used conference speaking, including a session at TechCrunch Early Stage 2023, as a visibility channel.

US technology companies — from startups to large enterprises — seeking to build remote or hybrid engineering teams in Latin America. Named customers include Coinbase, Truepill, Vanta, Accenture, Amazon, DISCO, IBM and Workrise, alongside other Y Combinator companies.

Geography

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with six local offices across Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Medellin, Cordoba and Santiago as of August 2023, plus coworking spaces in several Latin American cities. Recruiting spans Latin American countries including Colombia, Chile, Mexico and, following the GeekHunter acquisition, Brazil.

History

Founded as Austin Software in 2018, the company was selected for Y Combinator's Winter 2021 accelerator batch. It emerged from stealth in August 2022 under the name Astro, raising an initial $13 million Series A, then rebranded to Howdy.com in January 2023 alongside a $5 million Series A extension led by Obvious Ventures with participation from Greycroft, at a stated $105 million valuation. In August 2023 it acquired Brazilian tech recruitment marketplace GeekHunter, which continued to operate as a subsidiary with a separate brand and executive team.