Highlights:

  • Wordware’s platform lets users build complex AI agents using simple English, without needing to understand complex prompting.
  • Wordware’s platform, with over 286,000 users, is enterprise-ready and counts brands like Instacart and Uber among its customers.

Recently, a San Francisco-based startup aiming to simplify programming AI agents by using plain English, Wordware, has secured USD 30 million in seed funding, with Spark Capital leading the round.

The investment round also saw participation from Felicis, Y-Combinator, Day One Ventures, and prominent angel investors, including Siqi Chen, Co-founder and CEO of Runway AI Inc., Vlad Magdalin, Co-founder of Webflow Inc., and Jason Boehmig, Co-founder and CEO of Ironclad Inc.

Currently, the development of AI software and agents is primarily driven by software engineers and experts who fine-tune prompts to achieve the desired model performance. Wordware contends that the industry is at an impasse with its tools: either AI logic is embedded within the codebase, or it’s created through no-code solutions that fail to address all aspects.

This creates a gap for experts who possess valuable ideas and understand the industries where AI will be applied but struggle to clearly communicate concepts for AI models and agents to act upon. As a result, their knowledge is often lost in translation when conveyed.

“AI development needs a ground-up reimagining. This vision drove us to spend a year rebuilding the development environment for AI agents, solving the fundamental question: ‘If prompting is the new programming, what should the tools look like?’” said CEO of Wordware, Filip Kozera.

AI agents created using Wordware’s platform utilize English as the programming language. Users don’t need to grasp complex prompting techniques; if they can articulate their ideas clearly, they can develop advanced and intricate AI solutions.

The company stated that its goal is to strike a balance between advanced no-code editors and natural language prompt systems. It enables everyday users to link simple English descriptions of objectives for AI agents to various AI models and tools, including speech recognition, speech synthesis, image generation, and data analysis.

“Until now assembling an AI meant building an entire engineering team, months of coding and days needed for each iteration. But that changes today. We’ve created something entirely new. Now English is the programming language; accessible for everyone, yet powerful enough to satisfy your CTO,” said Kozera.

At first, using English as a programming language might appear to be limited in power. However, Wordware claims its platform offers advanced programming features, such as structured statements, reflection loops for self-checking, and systems for multimodal interactions—enabling the AI to respond differently depending on whether it’s processing text, voice, or video. Additionally, it can integrate with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) frameworks, which combine AI models with information retrieval systems to improve accuracy.

Wordware claims its platform is already enterprise-ready, with over 286,000 users. The company’s clients include well-known brands like Instacart and Uber Technologies Inc.