Graphite’s AI code review platform speeds up development as Menlo Ventures invests

Graphite’s AI-powered code review platform is transforming how software teams manage the development process, addressing a critical bottleneck in the age of AI-accelerated coding. By enabling stacked pull requests and leveraging Claude‘s advanced reasoning capabilities, Graphite allows engineering teams to process code faster while maintaining quality. This investment by Menlo Ventures highlights the growing importance of AI-enhanced developer tools that streamline the “outer loop” of software development—the review, testing, and deployment phases that often delay product delivery.

The big picture: Menlo Ventures and the Anthology Fund have invested in Graphite, an AI-powered platform that addresses a significant bottleneck in modern software development—the code review process.

• As AI accelerates coding speed, traditional code review processes where developers submit large pull requests and wait days for manual review have become increasingly problematic.
• Graphite’s platform allows for stacked pull requests, breaking updates into smaller, independent components that can be reviewed in parallel, significantly reducing feedback cycles.

Key innovation: Graphite partnered with Anthropic last year to launch Graphite Reviewer, an AI assistant that provides real-time, codebase-aware feedback to streamline the review process.

• The system summarizes continuous integration failures, generates pull request descriptions, and breaks down large code changes into manageable components.
• When issues are identified, Graphite Reviewer automatically generates fix suggestions that developers can implement with a single click.

Tech architecture: Graphite Reviewer builds sophisticated scaffolding around Claude’s reasoning capabilities, encoding deep expertise in code review workflows.

• The system includes multiple validation layers like voting, chain of reasoning, and self-critique to ensure reliable results.
• This approach exemplifies how next-generation AI applications will build domain-specific solutions on top of foundation models like Claude.

The founding team: Merrill Lutsky, Greg Foster, and Tomas Reimers—former engineers at Google, Facebook, and Oscar—created Graphite based on firsthand experience with inefficient review processes.

• Their goal was to democratize productivity-enhancing workflows previously available only at elite engineering organizations.
• Companies including Shopify, Ramp, and Notion have already adopted Graphite to reduce time spent on reviews and focus more on high-value development activities.

Why this matters: The investment aligns with Menlo Ventures’ broader strategy of backing transformative AI and developer tools companies.

• As AI tools generate increasingly more code, the need for efficient review, testing, and deployment processes becomes more critical.
• Graphite represents a key component in what Menlo sees as the future of AI-accelerated software development.