Graphite Secures $52M to Advance AI Code Review
New York City-based artificial intelligence code review startup Graphite, formerly known as Screenplay Studios Inc., announced a successful Series B funding round, totaling $52 million. This investment, led by Accel, includes participation from Menlo Ventures through its Anthology Fund, which is backed by the AI leader Anthropic PBC. Additional contributions came from prominent investors such as Shopify Ventures, Figma Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and The General Partnership.
Graphite, established in early 2020 by CEO Merrill Lutsky and others, initially focused on mobile development tooling before shifting its focus to code review. The startup leverages AI agents to automate its code review process, providing feedback that helps developers identify errors and oversights during code compilation.
Graphite’s AI code reviewer, Diamond, is powered by large language models from Anthropic and OpenAI. Diamond automatically summarizes pull requests and converts comments into actionable code suggestions. According to the company, Diamond’s instant, high-signal feedback helps catch bugs, logic errors, style inconsistencies, and security vulnerabilities. Diamond also suggests code changes based on developer feedback and can summarize code sections to clarify their purpose.
While Diamond sounds impressive, Graphite faces robust competition from numerous AI coding assistants. Key rivals include GitHub Inc.’s Copilot, along with startups such as Poolside Inc., Augment Inc., Magic AI Inc., and Codeium Inc. Moreover, industry giants like OpenAI, Google LLC, and Anthropic are developing their own assistive programming tools.
Despite the competitive landscape, Graphite has gained traction by emphasizing the reliability of its code suggestions. Unlike some competitors, Graphite allows users to define code-specific patterns and set up filters to safeguard sensitive information. Rama Sekhar of Menlo Ventures praised Graphite’s Diamond, stating that it “sets a new standard for code review, ensuring teams can trust and scale AI-generated code.”
Graphite appears to be rapidly expanding. The company reports a revenue increase of over 20 times in the past year. Its platform serves engineers at more than 500 companies, including Shopify Inc., Snowflake Inc., and Perplexity AI Inc. To broaden accessibility, Graphite is offering its core code review service free of charge to teams of all sizes, after previously limiting free access to smaller teams.
Looking ahead, Graphite plans to use the new funding to accelerate product development and grow its New York-based team. “Graphite is becoming the go-to tool for the world’s most forward-thinking engineering teams,” stated Accel Partner Christine Esserman. “It’s becoming the canonical layer where humans and agents collaborate on code.”
