AI code-testing startup Blacksmith has raised $45 million in a Series B round, bringing its valuation to $550 million, nearly nine times higher than less than a year ago.
Peak XV Partners led the round, with existing backers GV and Y Combinator also participating. The latest funding brings Blacksmith’s total capital raised to $58.5 million.
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Demand Grows As AI Speeds Up Coding
Founded in 2024, Blacksmith helps companies build, test and validate software before it reaches production. Customer numbers have grown from more than 700 to over 5,000 in less than a year, with companies including Mercury, Supabase, Clerk, Ashby and Expensify using the platform.
As tools such as Cursor, OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude Code make software development faster, companies are producing more code, increasing the need for reliable testing.
“Validating code is still a bottleneck, and it’s an even bigger bottleneck because people are writing even more,” CEO and co-founder Aditya Jayaprakash said.
From CI Platform To AI Coding Tools
Blacksmith initially focused on cloud infrastructure for continuous integration, allowing companies to run the builds and tests required before releasing software. It has since expanded into AI-powered development with Codesmith, an agent designed to automatically fix failed code checks.
The company reached a $10 million annualized revenue run rate with a team of just 10 people and has since expanded to around 30 employees. Revenue is now in the tens of millions of dollars, while some major customers spend more than $1 million annually on the platform.
Competition Remains Intense
Blacksmith faces competition from established platforms including GitHub Actions, as well as AI coding products and cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Jayaprakash said the company aims to differentiate itself through faster testing and competitive pricing. Blacksmith plans to expand its platform further, with the broader goal of helping developers write, test and merge software more efficiently.
