Blacksmith Software Crushes $10M Series A Led by Google Ventures in Just 14 Days
Holy moly, Blacksmith Software $10M funding just absolutely demolished expectations with a Series A that closed in a mind-blowing 14 days! Google Ventures led this round, which is honestly incredible validation for a company that’s solving one of the most frustrating problems in software development. The Blacksmith Software funding round included participation from previous backers plus notable angels like Spencer Kimball (CEO of Cockroach Labs) and David Cramer (Co-founder of Sentry).
What makes this Blacksmith Software $10M raise so incredible is the speed – when a funding round closes in two weeks, that tells you investors are absolutely desperate for this solution. The fact that Google Ventures doubled down just four months after leading their seed round shows they’re seeing something really special here!
Y Combinator Graduate Explodes to $1M ARR with 800+ Companies Using Platform
The Blacksmith Y Combinator success story is absolutely insane! Since launching from Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch, they’ve exploded to $1M ARR with revenue tripling in just the past four months. We’re talking about over 800 companies now running their GitHub Actions through Blacksmith’s platform!
The Blacksmith Y Combinator customer roster reads like a who’s who of hot startups – Ashby, Chroma, Clerk, Devsisters, Mintlify, Pylon, Slope, Supabase, and VEED are all using their platform. Kamil Ogórek from Supabase put it perfectly: “Blacksmith cut our test times in half without us lifting more than a pull request. Feels like we’re cheating, but we’ll take it!”
GitHub Actions Revolution: 75% Cost Cuts & 2x Speed Boost Transform CI/CD
The Blacksmith GitHub Actions performance improvements are absolutely bonkers! They’re doubling CI speed while cutting compute costs by up to 75% – and teams can migrate with literally just one line of code. Instead of using generic cloud hardware like AWS, Blacksmith GitHub Actions runs on high-performance, gaming-grade CPUs specifically tuned for maximum throughput.
What’s brilliant about Blacksmith GitHub Actions is how they eliminate build bottlenecks and queuing issues that plague traditional CI providers. This predictable performance means no more waiting around for builds to finish, which is absolutely crucial when you’re iterating on AI models that need dozens of daily updates.
Founded by Faire & Cockroach Labs Veterans: Deep Distributed Systems Expertise
The Blacksmith founders are absolutely stacked with the perfect background for this problem! Aditya Jayaprakash (CEO), Aayush Shah, and Aditya Maru all met at University of Waterloo and went on to build massive distributed systems at Faire and Cockroach Labs. These guys know firsthand how costly it is when CI is slow, unpredictable, and opaque.
Blacksmith founders have lived through the pain of waiting for builds while trying to ship features fast, especially in AI-driven development where iteration speed literally determines competitiveness. As Jayaprakash explained: “Most of the time, CI just gets in the way. We built Blacksmith to remove that drag and deliver predictable speed and cost savings.”
AI Development Bottleneck Solved: Fast CI Enables Rapid Model Iteration
The Blacksmith AI development solution addresses one of the biggest blockers in modern software engineering! In the AI era, where models and agents evolve through dozens of daily iterations, slow CI isn’t just annoying – it’s a complete growth killer that can make ambitious development timelines impossible.
Blacksmith AI development becomes even more critical for teams using AI codegen tools who need to move incredibly quickly. The platform’s new observability features give instant clarity to diagnose failures and spot real issues versus flaky tests, without the overhead of traditional monitoring suites that cost a fortune.
business model of Blacksmith
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| How Blacksmith Software Started | Founded in 2024 by three University of Waterloo alumni (Aditya Jayaprakash, Aayush Shah, Aditya Maru) who built distributed systems at Faire and Cockroach Labs. Started because they were frustrated with slow, expensive CI/CD that blocked rapid development cycles! |
| Present Condition of Blacksmith Software | Absolutely CRUSHING it! Just raised $10M Series A from Google Ventures (closed in 14 days!), hit $1M ARR with revenue tripling in 4 months, 800+ companies using platform including Supabase, Ashby, Clerk. Y Combinator Winter 2024 graduate! |
| Future of Blacksmith Software & Industry | Building comprehensive observability stack for GitHub Actions beyond just speed/cost optimization. Industry shifting toward AI-driven development requiring ultra-fast iteration cycles. Blacksmith positioned perfectly as the infrastructure enabling rapid AI model development! |
| Opportunities for Young Entrepreneurs | MASSIVE opportunities in developer infrastructure, CI/CD optimization, observability tools, AI development platforms, and performance monitoring! The DevOps tooling space is exploding as companies need faster, cheaper development cycles! |
| Market Share of Blacksmith Software | Early leader in high-performance CI/CD with 800+ companies and growing fast! Competing with traditional providers like GitHub Actions runners, but differentiated through gaming-grade hardware and 75% cost savings. Creating new category of premium CI infrastructure! |
| MOAT (Competitive Advantage) | Incredible moat: proprietary gaming-grade CPU infrastructure vs generic cloud hardware, one-line migration simplicity, 75% cost savings + 2x speed boost, plus founding team’s deep distributed systems expertise from Faire/Cockroach Labs! |
| Revenue Model of Blacksmith Software | SaaS model charging for enhanced GitHub Actions compute with premium hardware. Revenue from companies paying for faster, cheaper CI/CD runs. Expanding into observability and analytics tools. Clear path to massive enterprise contracts as AI development accelerates! |
I’m Araib Khan, an author at Startups Union, where I share insights on entrepreneurship, innovation, and business growth. This role helps me enhance my credibility, connect with professionals, and contribute to impactful ideas within the global startup ecosystem.




