Parkwalk are delighted to announce an investment into Diffblue, who are a pioneer in using artificial intelligence to automate writing unit tests. Diffblue are a spin-out from the University of Oxford.
Diffblue, creators of the world’s first AI-for-code solution that automates writing Java unit tests, today announced the close of a funding round led by IP Group Plc with participation from Parkwalk Advisors, Oxford University, Oxford Technology Investment Fund (OTIF) and private investors. To date, Diffblue has raised more than $32 million in venture funding.
“With billions of lines of Java code running in production today, companies need to be able to rapidly ship high quality software and Shift Left,” said Mathew Lodge, CEO of Diffblue. “Without Java unit tests, it’s difficult for any CIO to move an organization to agile or cloud native and adopt modern CI/CD processes. Diffblue’s first product, Cover, automates writing unit tests with cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology. Investors see automated code-writing as a massive opportunity as more Diffblue customers like AWS, Citigroup and S&P Global embrace our solution.”
According to a 2021 Diffblue developer survey, 83% of developers say their code could be better, with 40% wanting more unit tests. The 2021 Gartner® Market Guide for AI-Augmented Software Testing Tools report noted, “The market for software testing tools is rapidly moving from supporting simple test execution to applying AI throughout the full software test cycle. Software engineering leaders must build a portfolio of multiple tools and capabilities to support AI-augmented software testing.”[1]
Unit tests help organizations ensure that their software has fewer defects and exposes bugs earlier, improves the readability of code to simplify maintaining and improving software, enables safe reuse of software and accelerates the time to market of new software services and features for better customer experiences.
“AI is revolutionizing efficiency and quality in every sector,” said Mark Reilly, Managing Partner at IP Group Plc who led the financing round. “For all of us who rely on software every day, Diffblue is the leader in applying AI to overcome the programming failures that cause delays, economic loss and even danger to life. For developers, it frees more of their time to focus on building products, not writing tests.”
Diffblue Cover automatically generates Java unit tests at speeds up to 250x faster than humans. Diffblue Cover today supports Java, the most popular enterprise programming language in the Global 2000. The technology behind Diffblue Cover is also planned to be extended to support other popular programming languages.
[1] Gartner, “Market Guide for AI-Augmented Software Testing Tools,” Joachim Herschmann, Thomas Murphy, Jim Scheibmeir, 17 December 2021. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
