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A San Francisco startup wants to make developing artificial intelligence as easy as writing in a word processor. Wordware today announced a $30 million seed round led by Spark Capitalwhich is one of Y Combinator’s largest initial investments to date.
The company has built a so-called full-stack operating system for AI development, which allows users to create advanced AI agents using natural language instead of traditional programming code. With hundreds of thousands of users already on the platform, including business customers such as Instacart And TrackWordware is betting that the future of AI development belongs to domain experts and not traditional software engineers.
How natural language could replace traditional programming for AI
“We are not a code-gen application,” Filip Kozera, co-founder and CEO of Wordware, told VentureBeat, differentiating his company’s approach from other no-code tools. “We believe we are witnessing a paradigm shift, and AI agents represent a new breed of software. Rather than focusing on code-gen, we have chosen to prioritize AI agents as we believe they will play a central role in driving the economy and automation in the future.”
The company’s rise comes at a pivotal time in business technology. Current workplace statistics show that 81% of employees spend less than 3 hours about creative work every day, where inefficiencies in meaningful work are detrimental to the global economy $8.9 trillion annual. Traditional AI development requires scarce and expensive technical talent, creating a bottleneck for companies trying to implement AI solutions.
Kozera draws an ambitious parallel with the impact of Microsoft Excel on data analysis: “Excel has 750 million monthly active users. What they did with data analysis in the 1980s, we are trying to do with AI.”
Why business leaders build AI without engineering teams
The platform is already accepted by large companies. “The C-suite executive comes in, spends a few days iterating on their AI agent, then runs an API and puts it into production,” Kozera explains. He cites an example where a Instacart founder “locked himself in his office and produced a new feature for their app” in just four days without hiring AI engineers.
Another customer, Metadatauses Wordware to build AI systems that optimize ad spend. Kozera described how their AI agent works: “The agent answers a question from the customer, such as: ‘If I want to sell XYZ product in Brazil with this budget, how should I do that? [allocate] my resources?’ It then writes code, searches multiple databases in real time and generates a detailed report – all in less than a minute.”
The battle to become the operating system for AI development
Despite competition from tech giants like Microsoft, Wordware is betting on its ability to move faster. “When I think about competition, I don’t necessarily worry about other startups in the space, but Microsoft is one of the players that has gained access to multiple model providers,” Kozera said. “The answer here, as always when a startup competes with a larger established player, is delivery, the fact that we can take risks where they cannot.”
“You have to be a little delusional to think that you can rebuild the entire software development ecosystem that has been built for the last 30 years,” he added. “This is what we’re trying to do.”
Unlike typical no-code platforms, Wordware maintains a balance between accessibility and power. “Because we approached it in a way that we don’t want to have any graduation issues, it’s not as simple as most no-code tools,” Kozera explains. “It uses a number of programming concepts, and this is the price we pay for having the ability to actually build serious infrastructure.”
The platform includes features such as reflection loops for self-monitoring AI agents, comprehensive evaluation frameworks, and a GitHub-like repository system for sharing and customizing solutions. These capabilities have attracted significant attention from enterprise customers looking to accelerate their AI initiatives without building large specialized teams.
Looking ahead, Wordware plans to expand its reach in early 2025 by enabling individual users to automate personal workflows using the engine. The company is actively hiring and building what Kozera describes as a unique corporate culture focused on transforming the AI development landscape.
The $30 million investment, including participation from Felicis, Y-Combinator, Day one ventureand notable angels such as Paul Graham and Webflows Vlad Magdalinsuggests a growing confidence in tools that bridge the gap between technical and non-technical users in AI development. As organizations look to implement more AI solutions, Wordware’s approach could change the way companies approach AI implementation in the coming years.
“Over the course of next year, we want to build the best factory for building the AI engine,” Kozera said. “There is a potential to build a multi-billion dollar company in AI development. It will be a battle, but it is a battle I want to fight.”
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