Bangalore-based Kusho has raised $600,000 in pre-seed funding led by Antler India. This round also saw participation from Blume Founders Fund, UpSparks Capital, and prominent angels like Mohit Kumar and Vatsal Singhal (Co-founders, Ultrahuman), and Ashok Hariharan (CEO, IDfy), among others. 

Kusho uses proprietary models coupled with foundational LLMs to simulate an AI software developer that can discover bugs in code with significantly greater accuracy and in a fraction of the time compared to a human. These AI agents harness the power of LLMs to ensure code is tested during development and with every new release. 

Kusho was founded in 2023 by BITS Pilani alumni, Abhishek Saikia and Sourabh Gawande. The startup originated from Sourabh's decade-long experience in software development where he noticed the need for autonomous testing. His background includes spearheading the development of numerous systems at FalconX, a digital asset prime brokerage. Abhishek brings a wealth of experience from his time in product management at Flipkart, where he built and launched software at scale.

Abhishek co-founder and CEO of Kusho said, “The cost of shipping suboptimal code is now higher than ever—unreliable software is estimated to cost businesses $2.4 trillion in the US alone. We empower software developers to focus on building and shipping great software without having to worry about unnoticed bugs, ultimately saving time, enhancing overall codebase quality, and making releases stable and error-free. By automating manual and time-consuming tasks, developers can significantly reduce time-to-market and project costs, making Kusho an invaluable asset for tech teams.”

Sourabh Gawande, co-founder and CTO of Kusho added, “At Kusho, we have built machine learning models that feed into a chain-of-prompts system that is trained to sense issues and act on them. By deploying AI algorithms to automate test-and-repair procedures, we can ensure precision and efficiency in the software development life cycle. We are excited to build AI-driven solutions and continue providing developers and tech leaders with tools that make their lives easier.”

Commenting on the investment, Nitin Sharma, Partner at Antler added, “The latest developments in LLMs present exciting new opportunities in an otherwise crowded developer tooling space. Kusho can replace several manual processes and with its proprietary AI agent, allows for a faster, cheaper, and reliable software-building process. The team has shown incredible progress and in just 3 months is working with hundreds of users across the US, EU, and South Asia. We are thrilled to back Abhishek and Sourabh and be a part of Kusho’s journey.”