AI Startup Code Metal Raises $125M for 'Vibe Coding'

- The $125 million Series B funding round was led by Salesforce Ventures and included participation from investors such as Accel, B Capital, and defense manufacturer RTX. This investment increased Code Metal's valuation to $1.25 billion. - Code Metal's platform is designed to translate code from high-level programming languages like Python to low-level, hardware-specific languages necessary for embedded systems and chips. Its verification process is a key feature for mission-critical industries where bugs can have severe consequences. - The company's technology is aimed at modernizing legacy codebases, a significant challenge for the Department of Defense, where critical systems may run on languages decades old, such as Ada, COBOL, and Fortran. - Current customers already include defense contractor L3Harris, RTX, and the U.S. Air Force, indicating existing traction within the defense sector. - The term "vibe coding" was coined in early 2025 by computer scientist Andrej Karpathy and refers to using natural language prompts to guide an AI in generating, refining, and debugging code. Code Metal's approach goes beyond simple generation by adding a crucial verification and validation step to ensure the translated code is production-ready. - The Department of Defense's 2023 Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy emphasizes accelerating the integration of AI to maintain a competitive advantage, creating a favorable policy environment for companies like Code Metal. - Code Metal was founded in 2023 in Boston by Peter Morales, who serves as CEO, and co-founder Alex Showalter. Morales has a background in defense, MIT, and Microsoft, where he repeatedly encountered the challenges of making software compatible with specific hardware. - To accelerate growth, the company appointed Ryan Aytay, former CEO of Tableau, as its new President and Chief Operating Officer.