Creator of OpenDevin, All Hands AI, Raises $5 Million

All Hands AI, the creator of open source alternative to Cognition Labs' Devin, OpenDevin, has raised $5 million in funding to further build and improve their software development agents. 

We are proud to announce that All Hands has raised $5M to build the world’s best software development agents, and do it in the open 🙌https://t.co/IMV22PJFlL

Thank you to @MenloVentures and our wonderful slate of investors for believing in the mission! https://t.co/0dAXK47fWt

— All Hands AI (@allhands_ai) September 5, 2024

The Project now renamed as OpenHands aims to become the most effective open-source AI tool for developers, with capabilities to handle bug fixing, test writing, and improvements to large enterprise codebases.

Menlo Ventures led the investment round, along with other prominent backers. The funding will go towards enhancing the user experience, improving the accuracy of agents, and making the technology applicable to large-scale software systems.

OpenHands has already garnered significant attention, accumulating over 30,000 stars on GitHub and growing to include more than 150 contributors.

Xingyao Wang, a co-founder of All Hands, announced the funding news while revealing his decision to take a leave from his PhD studies to focus on the company full-time. “Let's push open-source agents forward together, in the open!” Wang said, emphasising the company's commitment to keeping their technology accessible.

Wang is taking a break from his doctoral studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he conducted research on interactive language agents driven by foundation models

Excited to share that @allhands_ai has raised $5M -- and it's finally time to announce a new chapter in my life: I'm taking a leave from my PhD to focus full-time on All Hands AI. Let's push open-source agents forward together, in the open! https://t.co/yH30JANuaY

— Xingyao Wang (@xingyaow_) September 5, 2024

Co-founder Graham Neubig, Chief Scientist, brings deep expertise in natural language processing and agent development. Wang previously worked on document summarisation at Google and later held executive roles at various startups, focusing on machine learning and infrastructure projects. 

Neubig, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon, has a distinguished background in natural language processing, further strengthening the team’s capabilities in AI research and development.

OpenHands is envisioned as a proactive AI pair programmer, designed to collaborate closely with developers by automating routine tasks such as writing tests, recognizing changes in code that affect other parts of the application, and even proposing solutions. 

The company's approach to open-source development is based on the belief that powerful tech should not be locked behind proprietary walls but freely accessible for everyone to use, understand, and contribute to.

With this funding, All Hands is set to further solidify its position in the AI development landscape while continuing its mission to make open-source tools more powerful and user-friendly.