The way software teams work is being reshaped right now. As AI writes more code and engineering orgs move faster than ever, the gap between writing the code and *understanding* the code will widen dramatically. With a vision to make sure no one has to dig through “commit archaeology” ever again, Dennis Pilarinos started Unblocked 3+ years ago (just before the AI era kicked off, so he’s looking pretty prescient right now). While LLMs will make these cracks more noticeable, Dennis has long been obsessed with this problem. From team turnover to important context scattered across multiple systems, the “why” behind the code has always been hard to piece together (whether you were in late-night debugging sessions, onboarding new engineers, or dealing with legacy projects). He had the great insight that teams don’t just need the code, but the intent behind it. The history, the connections to other parts of the system, any relevant discussion or documentation, no matter the format. That’s exactly what Unblocked helps surface. They’ve since made great progress on their mission to help developers get unblocked as quickly as possible. Teams are saving 1-2 hours per engineer daily, and onboarding new engineers in days instead of weeks. I'm incredibly proud First Round Capital got the chance to partner with Dennis again (after he built Buddybuild, acquired by Apple). Today’s $20M Series A news is more fuel to push developer workflows forward. More on what they’re up to in TechCrunch today.
"As AI writes more code and engineering orgs move faster than ever" - they're evidently not. "Contrary to our expectations, our findings indicate that AI adoption is negatively impacting software delivery performance. We see that the effect on delivery throughput is small, but likely negative (an estimated 1.5% reduction for every 25% increase in AI adoption). The negative impact on delivery stability is larger (an estimated 7.2% reduction for every 25% increase in AI adoption)." https://www.gitclear.com/research/google_dora_2024_summary_ai_impact
Thanks for the kind words Bill! Working with you and the team First Round Capital has been super helpful as we achieved this milestone. Looking forward to many many more..
This sounds amazing. As a non-coder engineer I’m shocked this doesnt already exist!
Congratulations to Dennis Pilarinos and the entire Unblocked team on this exciting milestone! 🎉 It's truly inspiring to see how Unblocked is transforming the way software teams understand and interact with their code. Bridging the gap between writing and comprehending code is a game-changer, and it's clear that your innovative approach is making a significant impact. Kudos to First Round Capital for recognizing and supporting such a visionary leader once again. Looking forward to seeing how Unblocked continues to revolutionize developer workflows. 🚀
Read more in Techcrunch here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/06/unblocked-raises-20-million-for-its-ai-assistant-to-help-devs-understand-legacy-codebases/ And more from Unblocked here: https://getunblocked.com/blog/series-a/