Chamath Palihapitiya’s AI Startup Secures $135M Series A as He Returns as CEO

Chamath Palihapitiya, widely recognised for founding venture capital firm Social Capital and co-hosting the All-In podcast, announced on Monday that his AI software startup has completed a substantial Series A funding round.

The company, 8090 Labs, has raised $135 million in financing led by Salesforce Ventures. The round also attracted participation from Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo, David Sacks’ Craft Ventures, fellow All-In podcast co-hosts David Friedberg through The Production Board and Jason Calacanis through Launch, along with several prominent angel investors, including Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.

Palihapitiya established 8090 Labs in January 2024 to build an AI-powered coding agent designed specifically for enterprise software development teams. Its flagship platform, Software Factory, is intended to help corporate engineering teams use artificial intelligence to produce production-ready software rather than simply generating experimental or “vibe-coded” prototypes. The company says the platform also includes enterprise-grade capabilities such as audit trails and governance controls required by large organisations.

Alongside the funding announcement, Palihapitiya revealed in a post on X that he will now assume the role of chief executive officer, transitioning from his previous position as a board member to lead the company’s day-to-day operations.

He said the current wave of AI innovation reminds him of the early years of social media, when he worked as one of Facebook’s first executives before the company became Meta.

“Since I left Facebook, I have been waiting for a moment like this to return to a full-time operating role,” Palihapitiya wrote. “I am convinced that what we are building now is even more important, so there was no decision to make except to be all in.”