Codeium, a software company known for its AI coding assistant, is gaining popularity among developers and enterprises for its ability to streamline coding tasks. Rohan Choudhury, a Ph.D student in robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, has found that tasks like debugging and tweaking code that used to take hours now only take seconds with Codeium’s autocomplete tool. The company, featured on Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startups list and valued at $500 million, has raised $93 million and made about $1 million in revenue in 2023.
Codeium is now introducing a new coding engine called Cortex, which can process up to 100 million lines of code at once. This capability allows for better suggestions by providing fuller context about a company’s entire codebase. CEO Varun Mohan explained that Cortex can automatically apply updates across multiple files in a codebase in as little as six seconds, making it ideal for enterprise customers with large code repositories, like Zillow. This new technology positions Codeium as a strong competitor in the AI coding assistant market.
Investors have shown significant interest in AI coding assistants, with startups like Cognition Labs and Magic raising millions at high valuations. Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, powered by GPT-4, has also seen success with 1.8 million paid subscribers and over $100 million in annual recurring revenue. Despite this competition, Codeium sees GitHub Copilot as its main rival and believes its new coding engine will give it an edge by enabling advanced reasoning in AI systems to solve complex problems.
Codeium, originally called Exafunction, was founded in 2021 by Mohan and his MIT classmate, Douglas Chen. The duo pivoted from managing GPUs for companies to offering their own AI models for coding in 2022. This decision proved to be fruitful, as they are now positioned to differentiate themselves in a crowded market by focusing on tools that developers can interact with and provide feedback to. Cortex, for example, allows developers to accept or reject suggestions, giving them more control over the coding process.
As the industry moves towards AI systems with human-like reasoning abilities, Codeium is at the forefront with its new coding engine and focus on advanced reasoning. By allowing developers to review, navigate, and deploy code faster, Codeium aims to provide the ultimate leverage for developers in completing coding tasks efficiently. With the success of their AI coding assistant and the introduction of Cortex, Codeium is poised to continue making waves in the software development world as a leader in AI-driven coding assistance.
