The latest Oxford-based AI startup to make headlines is Diffblue, a University of Oxford spin-out that is applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to software development.
The young company has raised $22 million in Series A funding, one year since leaving academia. The round is led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, alongside Oxford Sciences Innovations (OSI), and the Oxford Technology and Innovations Fund (OTIF).
Born out of ten years of research, Diffblue describes its core AI as being able to build an exact mathematical model of any code base, with just a few examples provided. The resulting model then allows a deep semantic understanding of what a computer program is trying to do, from which a number of aspects of software development can be automated. Initially, Diffblue are working on three products built on the core AI engine.
The first is a testing product that automatically spots bugs and writes tests, which is one of the lower-hanging and most laborious parts of quality software development. It’s also a crucial one, especially for mission-critical applications where a software failure can cost lives or huge amounts of money.
