Highlights:
- Founded in early 2020 by CEO Merrill Lutsky and others, Graphite initially focused on mobile development tooling before shifting its focus to code review.
- Diamond, an AI-powered code reviewer of Graphite, is developed on large language models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
An artificial intelligence code review startup Graphite raised USD 52 million in a Series B funding round. This New York City-based company is also officially known as Screenplay Studios Inc.
The round was led by Accel, with additional investment from Menlo Ventures via Anthology Fund, a USD 100 million initiative created in collaboration with AI leader Anthropic PBC. Other prominent investors, including Shopify Ventures, Figma Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and The General Partnership, also participated.
Founded in early 2020 by CEO Merrill Lutsky and others, Graphite initially focused on mobile development tooling before shifting its focus to code review. The company leverages AI agents to automate the code review process, offering feedback to identify errors and oversights as developers write new code.
Diamond, an AI-powered code reviewer of Graphite, is developed on large language models from OpenAI and Anthropic. It proactively briefs pull requests and translates comments into executable code recommendations. By providing instant, high-quality feedback, Diamond claims to detect a wide range of issues, from bugs and logic errors to style inconsistencies and security vulnerabilities.
Beyond identifying problems, Diamond can recommend changes based on developer comments and generate summaries explaining the intent behind sections of code.
While Diamond offers impressive capabilities, Graphite faces strong competition in the AI coding assistant space. Its biggest rival is GitHub’s Copilot, alongside numerous startups like Poolside, Augment, Magic AI, and Codeium. Larger players are also in the mix, including OpenAI, which recently added code editing tools to its macOS ChatGPT app, Google with its Code Assist tools, and Anthropic with its own programming assistant.
Despite the competition, Graphite has gained a strong following among developers by emphasizing the reliability of its code suggestions. Unlike many other tools, it allows users to define patterns tailored to specific codebases and set up filters to detect sensitive information that could pose security risks.
Rama Sekhar of Menlo Ventures mentioned Graphite’s Diamond “sets a new standard for code review, ensuring teams can trust and scale AI-generated code.”
Whatever the reason, Graphite is experiencing rapid growth. The company reported a more than 20-fold increase in revenue over the past year and now serves engineers at over 500 companies, including Shopify, Snowflake, and Perplexity AI.
To make its platform more appealing, Graphite has expanded free access to its core code review tool for teams of all sizes, whereas previously, only teams of ten or fewer could use it at no cost.
Looking ahead, Graphite plans to use the newly raised funds to accelerate product development and expand its New York-based team.
“Graphite is becoming the go-to tool for the world’s most forward-thinking engineering teams,” said Accel Partner Christine Esserman. “It’s becoming the canonical layer where humans and agents collaborate on code.”
