AI startup Grit raises $7 million to automate software maintenance

By Anna Tong

 

(Reuters) - Artificial intelligence code cleanup startup Grit has raised a $7 million in a seed round, the New York City-based startup said on Tuesday. 

 

Founders Fund and Abstract Ventures led the round, with participation from Quiet Capital, 8VC, A* Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, SV Angel, Operator Partners, CoFound Partners, and Uncorrelated Ventures.

 

Grit provides an AI-powered product that automates software maintenance, traditionally a manual and frustrating task for software engineering teams, particularly for large enterprises with antiquated code bases. 

 

For example, when new versions of software come out, engineering teams can spend months updating their code to work with the new software version, which Grit uses AI to entirely automate, said the company’s CEO Morgante Pell. In one case, a software project that was supposed to take six months was shortened to one week using Grit, he said.

 

“Being able to understand and maintain a code base on autopilot saves a lot of time and money,” Founders Fund investor John Luttig told Reuters. “Companies can now reallocate existing headcount to work on higher leverage problems.”

 

Grit was previously in private beta, but with the new funding, the company has now opened a public beta. According to the company, customers range from small startups to publicly traded companies.

 

(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)