Chamath Palihapitiya Leads 8090 Labs After Raising $135M

Chamath Palihapitiya, a well-known figure in the venture capital world thanks to his company Social Capital and his podcast All-In, recently announced a significant advancement for his artificial intelligence startup, 8090 Labs. This company, dedicated to AI-assisted programming, has successfully raised $135 million in a Series A funding round.

The funding was led by Salesforce Ventures, with notable participation from figures such as Jeffrey Katzenberg of WndrCo, David Sacks of Craft Ventures, as well as his All-In podcast colleagues, David Friedberg and Jason Calacanis. Among the angel investors are also Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, and Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora.

Founded in January 2024, 8090 Labs aims to provide an AI coding agent specifically designed for enterprise programming teams. Its flagship product, Software Factory, helps enterprise coders leverage AI to create production-quality software, not just prototypes based on ideas, by integrating essential controls for businesses, such as audit trails.

In addition to this funding round, Chamath Palihapitiya announced on X that he will take the helm of the startup as CEO. He expressed his enthusiasm for the current rise of AI, which he compares to the rise of social media that he experienced as an executive at Facebook. "Since I left Facebook, I have been waiting for a moment like this to return to a full-time operational role," he stated, adding that he is convinced that what they are building now is even more important, so there was no other decision to make than to be fully committed.