Oxford University AI spin-off raises $22m
Diffblue, an artificial intelligence company from Oxford, has successfully generated $22m in a funding round, a year after it split off from the University of Oxford. The Series A round, led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, will provide funding for the launch of three products: a testing product that auto-generates readable tests for a codebase, a security product that detects security weaknesses and runs actual exploits, and a refactoring product that rewrites bad or outdated code.

South East Deals, Technology Muhammad Aldalou

An Oxford-based artificial intelligence (AI) specialist has raised $22m (£17.15m) in funding one year after its spin-out from the University of Oxford.

Diffblue's series A round was led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, alongside Oxford Sciences Innovations (OSI) and Oxford Technology and Innovations Fund (OTIF).

The company is described as "a world leader in AI for code". Diffblue's core AI builds an exact mathematical model of any code base, which allows a "very deep semantic understanding" of what a programme is trying to do.

The business is launching three products that are built on this core engine: a testing product that automatically generates human-readable tests for an existing codebase; a security product that automatically discovers security holes and generates actual runnable exploits; and a refactoring product that automatically rewrites badly expressed or out of date code.

Founder and chief executive Daniel Kroening, who is also professor of Computer Science at University of Oxford, said: "Software is becoming increasingly complex, interdependent and vulnerable and it’s unrealistic to believe that humans can guarantee its safety and security. We believe that the suite of tools we are developing at Diffblue has immense potential to help address these issues.

"Studies show that coders spend up to 30 per cent of their time writing tests. Automation will provide great returns both in terms of achieving much broader test coverage, and also freeing up significant developer time. Furthermore, many legacy codebases suffer from very deficient test coverage, which removes any chance of lifting them out of legacy and into nimbleness – again, we believe automation in this space will have powerful beneficial effects."

Barnaby Martin, chairman, added: "We're proud to have closed one of Europe's largest Series A rounds for an AI company. The fact that this has been completed inside just one year since the company’s inception is testament to Daniel and his incredible team.

"We are delighted to welcome Goldman Sachs as an investor and we look forward to working closely with them and our existing investors as we continue to expand Diffblue's market-leading capabilities and product suite."