Yardstik Raises $30M Series B for Workforce Risk

Yardstik has raised a $30M Series B led by Harbert Growth Partners to expand fraud prevention, credential management, and continuous workforce monitoring. The Minneapolis company announced the financing on August 27, 2026, with existing investors Rally Ventures, MissionOG, Crosslink Capital, Grotech Ventures, and Great North Ventures participating.

The round is less about making the background check faster than making it less temporary. Yardstik is financing motor vehicle reporting, OIG exclusion monitoring, and automated alerts for licenses, insurance, and certifications that can change after a worker clears the hiring process.

Yardstik reports that the Series B brings total capital raised to $65M. The publicly named financings located in this review total $54M, so the cumulative figure remains company-reported and the missing $11M should not be assigned to an invented round. No valuation or ownership terms were disclosed.

What Yardstik Raised and Who Invested

The $30M Series B was led by Harbert Growth Partners, the growth-equity strategy within Harbert Management Corporation. Five existing investors returned: Rally Ventures, MissionOG, Crosslink Capital, Grotech Ventures, and Great North Ventures. Axios also reported that CEO Andrew Johnson confirmed the closed round and Harbert lead.

Yardstik's disclosed financing history includes a $4M Seed in 2020 co-led by Rally Ventures and Crosslink Capital, an $8M Series A in 2022 led by Grotech Ventures, and a $12M expansion round in 2023 led by MissionOG. Adding those rounds to the current Series B produces $54M, below Yardstik's stated $65M total. The difference may reflect undisclosed or differently accounted capital, but the available sources do not explain it.

That caveat does not alter the current event. Yardstik closed a $30M Series B with a lead investor and a returning syndicate that spans the company's formation, early scale, and current expansion. The continuity matters because those investors are underwriting a larger commercial role for the product, not simply another customer-acquisition sprint.

Why Screening After Hire Is the Product Thesis

Traditional employment screening creates a record at one moment. A driver's history, professional license, insurance status, exclusion status, or identity risk can change after the person begins working, leaving employers dependent on annual rechecks, manual workflows, or a report that is technically accurate and operationally old.

Yardstik's product thesis is that workforce trust should behave more like a continuing data relationship. Its Human Trust Platform combines identity-fraud prevention, background screening, credential verification, and continuous monitoring. Fraud Insights gives an employer an aggregate view of risk signals, while Continuous Monitoring automatically enrolls screened workers into post-hire monitoring.

The company plans to use the Series B to develop motor vehicle reports, OIG exclusion monitoring, and alerts that notify employers when a license, insurance policy, or certification expires. Those capabilities are especially relevant in transportation, healthcare, childcare, staffing, and marketplace work, where a credential or record can determine whether somebody is allowed to perform the job.

The Operating Evidence Behind the Round

Yardstik reports 149% year-over-year revenue growth, a 99.4% customer-satisfaction rating, and 98% account retention across the prior three years. These are company-provided metrics rather than independently audited results, but they help explain Harbert's investment logic: customers appear to keep the product as Yardstik expands beyond the initial background check.

The company names Gopuff, Liveops, Sharetown, Taskrabbit, HUNGRY, and H&R Block among its customers. In Yardstik's release, Liveops described using the platform to identify fake identities and credentials in its hiring process. Yardstik also says its platform supports direct use, pre-built integrations with systems including Greenhouse, Lever, Workable, Fountain, Bullhorn, Avionte, and Paylocity, and API or white-label deployment inside other technology products.

That distribution model can make the product harder to replace because the screening and monitoring logic lives inside a customer's existing workflow. It also raises the standard Yardstik must meet. Workforce data is sensitive, and a continuing monitoring product must remain useful, accurate, secure, and compliant without converting every signal into noise or every worker into a permanent suspicion.

Market Context for Continuous Workforce Risk

The need for earlier signals is not limited to applicant screening. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners studied 2,402 investigated occupational-fraud cases across 143 countries for its 2026 Report to the Nations. A typical case lasted 12 months before detection, and 43% were detected after a tip. Those findings concern occupational fraud, not fake applicants, but they show how long harmful activity can remain invisible when an organization depends on episodic discovery.

Yardstik is applying that broader timing problem to workforce infrastructure. The company's official product materials describe fraud detection before a check, screening and credential verification at hire, and ongoing monitoring afterward. It operates as a consumer reporting agency subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and says its security and compliance program includes a SOC 2 report and PBSA accreditation.

The commercial opportunity sits between two imperfect extremes. A one-time check can become stale, while indiscriminate surveillance can create cost, false positives, legal exposure, and damaged trust. Yardstik has to show that its continuing signals are specific enough for employers to act on and disciplined enough for workers to be treated fairly.

Leadership and the Shift Beyond Background Checks

Andrew Johnson became Yardstik's CEO in October 2024 after serving as COO. The company's leadership transition moved co-founder Matt Meents to the board, preserving founder involvement while putting a growth operator in the chief executive role. CTO Josh Cutler, appointed in January 2024, leads the technical side of the platform expansion.

That handoff is visible in the financing thesis. Matt Meents built Yardstik around a more flexible, API-first approach to screening. Andrew Johnson is extending the relationship beyond the hiring gate, while Josh Cutler's organization has to turn fraud, credential, and monitoring data into products employers can use inside existing systems.

Harbert Growth Partners is backing that transition after Yardstik reported strong retention and growth. Great North Ventures, which joined the company's Series A, described the platform as becoming more deeply embedded in customer operations as it moves from one-time screening toward full workforce-lifecycle protection.

What the $30M Changes

The Series B gives Yardstik more room to build the products that make a screening relationship continue after the worker starts. Motor vehicle changes, OIG exclusions, credential expirations, and fraud signals all create moments when an employer may need current information rather than the document saved at hire.

The harder work begins after the alert exists. Yardstik must help customers distinguish a meaningful change from background noise, preserve FCRA and related compliance processes, and integrate the signal into a decision that a real operator can defend. A live feed is valuable only when the recipient knows what to do with it.

Yardstik's next phase will be measured by whether continuous workforce trust becomes normal infrastructure or remains an upgraded form of rescreening. The $30M round moves that question out of the product roadmap and into daily employer operations, where the record keeps changing and the decision has to keep up.