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Blacksmith Raises $45M Series B from Peak XV Partners as AI-Generated Code Drives Demand for Faster Code Validation

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Peak XV Partners leads the round as Blacksmith grows from 800 to more than 6,000 customers amid surging demand for faster code validation.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Blacksmith, a cloud for validating code, has raised a $45 million Series B led by Peak XV Partners, with existing investors Y Combinator and GV also participating. The round values the company at $550 million.

The financing comes as AI coding tools are changing how quickly engineering teams produce software. Since the beginning of the year, the number of CI jobs running on Blacksmith has grown between 5% and 10% week over week. More than 6,000 companies now use Blacksmith, including Supabase, Clerk, Ashby and Mercury, up from approximately 800 when the company announced its Series A last September.

As developers adopt tools such as Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents, teams are producing significantly more code and opening more pull requests. That has put increasing pressure on the infrastructure responsible for building, testing and validating every change before it ships.

“Writing code has gotten dramatically easier. Validating it hasn’t,” said Aditya “JP” Jayaprakash, co-founder and CEO of Blacksmith. “We’re seeing teams adopt coding agents, generate several times more pull requests, and suddenly CI becomes a bottleneck. Every piece of code an agent writes still has to be built, tested, and reviewed before it can ship. That validation layer is going to become increasingly important as more software is written by agents.”

Beyond CI: the validation platform

Blacksmith started with purpose-built infrastructure that runs CI workloads dramatically faster than general-purpose cloud instances, with migration taking a one-line change to a workflow file. That remains the foundation. The broader goal is helping developers validate and merge code faster, with confidence in every change they ship.

The company recently launched codesmith, a cloud coding agent developers can delegate tasks to. Beyond building features and fixing bugs, codesmith works inside the validation loop: diagnosing CI failures, autofixing them, and keeping pull requests green. It is also the foundation for codesmith QA, which will autonomously test changes before they merge.

Where the money goes

Most of the new capital goes to compute. Blacksmith manages hundreds of thousands of cores today and plans to grow that footprint by an order of magnitude in the coming months to stay ahead of demand.

Blacksmith is hiring engineers in New York and San Francisco: https://www.blacksmith.sh/careers 

About Blacksmith

Blacksmith builds infrastructure and software for validating code. Its purpose-built CI cloud runs GitHub Actions workloads on dedicated compute with caching and storage optimized for CI. More than 6,000 companies use Blacksmith, including Supabase, Clerk, Ashby and Mercury. Blacksmith also develops codesmith, its cloud coding agent for building and validating software. The company was founded by Aditya (JP) Jayaprakash, Aayush Shah and Aditya Maru and is backed by Peak XV Partners, Y Combinator and GV. For more information, visit blacksmith.sh.

About Peak XV Partners

Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) is a leading venture capital firm investing across India, APAC and beyond. Over the last 20 years of operations in the region, Peak XV has grown to manage over USD 10 billion in capital across 16 funds and has invested in over 450 companies. The portfolio has seen over 37 IPOs and several successful M&As to date. To know more, please visit www.peakxv.com.

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SOURCE Blacksmith

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Zocdoc Brings Seamless, Real-Time Appointment Booking to Gemini

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Zocdoc is the Gemini app’s first health appointments connected apps partner, marking the first time a leading AI platform has connected users directly to real-time, bookable care.

NEW YORK, Aug. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Zocdoc, the healthcare access infrastructure that connects patients to great care, announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Gemini app to make agentic healthcare appointment booking a reality.

Google Gemini app users can now agentically find and book an appointment that meets their needs with Zocdoc’s nationwide network of more than 200,000 providers across 200+ specialties and 10,000+ insurance plans. The Zocdoc connected app in Gemini allows users to easily find real-time appointment availability and book with a provider without navigating directories, searching multiple sites, or waiting on hold.

“Patients are increasingly starting their health journeys with AI, and this collaboration makes it easier for Gemini app users to find the care that they need, when they need it,” said Oliver Kharraz, MD, Zocdoc founder and CEO. “We are proud to partner with Gemini as Zocdoc begins to power access to care everywhere.”

“Health isn’t only about knowledge, it’s about action and access. When you need to see a doctor, we want that to be easy. And today it’s not,” said Michael Howell, Chief Health Officer, Google. “We’re excited for this first-of-its-kind collaboration with Zocdoc that takes an important step toward realizing one of the promises of the agentic AI moment — where the technology helps you do the work so that you can focus on what’s important: your health.”

AI is rapidly becoming a starting point in the search for care. According to Zocdoc’s AI-Informed Patient Report, 26% of patients have already used AI to ask a health-related question, and 85% of providers say they’re seeing more AI-informed patients than they were a year ago. 

Finding care that matches personal preferences is now possible through Gemini app’s agentic capabilities and powered by Zocdoc’s extensive healthcare access infrastructure. For providers, this offers a new way for them to reach patients where they’re increasingly beginning their healthcare journey. Providers already on Zocdoc are automatically enabled on Google Gemini, with no additional integration required.

This partnership marks another step in Zocdoc’s evolution from a marketplace to healthcare access infrastructure. For nearly two decades, Zocdoc has unified healthcare’s fragmentation across insurance plans, EHRs and practice management systems, specialties, visit types, and provider organizations to power seamless access to care. While the national average wait time to see a doctor exceeds 31 days, with Zocdoc, the typical patient can be seen within 24-72 hours. Today, Zocdoc powers access to care not only on its website and app, but also across healthcare’s many front doors — including online search, insurance directories, providers’ websites, practice phone lines, and now AI platforms.

The Zocdoc connected app in the Gemini app is rolling out today to all 18+ US users, and coming to Gemini Spark in the coming weeks. To learn more about Gemini’s connected apps read the News from Google blog here.

About Zocdoc

Zocdoc is the healthcare access infrastructure that connects patients to great care. By powering access to care everywhere patients search, Zocdoc helps them move from being stuck to being seen. Each month, millions of patients find and book appointments with providers, powered by Zocdoc—on the company’s website and app, and across AI platforms, online search, insurance directories, providers’ websites, practice phone lines, and more—with the typical appointment happening within 24 to 72 hours from booking.

With nearly two decades of experience unifying healthcare’s fragmentation, Zocdoc is uniquely positioned to power access across insurance plans, PMS and EHR systems, specialties, visit types, and provider organizations of every size. By fixing healthcare at the start, Zocdoc empowers patients to get the care they need, when they need it, while helping providers be bookable everywhere patients search.

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SOURCE Zocdoc

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ketteQ Launches Quintus™, the Only Free-Range AI™ for Supply Chain

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AI agent reasons over any question, executes any action, and deploys above any existing supply chain planning system in four to eight weeks.

ATLANTA, Aug. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — ketteQ, the supply chain orchestration company, today announced the general availability of Quintus™, the only Free-Range AI™ for supply chain. Quintus™ reasons over any question, executes any task, learns skills, and runs missions to address any use case, unscripted and unconstrained. Within a fully governed and auditable framework, Quintus™ operates above any ERP or planning platform a company already runs, or as part of ketteQ’s own Planning Solutions and Execution Solutions.

Other supply chain solutions have AI bolted on as a sidecar to their legacy architectures, which greatly limits their questions, reasoning, answers, and value delivery capabilities.  It can handle only a predefined set of use cases. Quintus™ is built differently. It reasons through any questions and tasks in real time, using Python code that is generated and executed on the fly, along with PolymatiQ™, its patent-pending agentic solver, to test thousands of scenarios simultaneously rather than reporting on what has already been computed.

Ask Quintus™ Anything
Software engineering, customer support, and marketing content creation were each transformed within months once ChatGPT and Claude gave people direct, unscripted access to reasoning AI. Supply chain is having that moment now. A planner can ask Quintus™ a question the same way they would ask ChatGPT or Claude to draft something or debug code. For example, just ask “If our supplier’s plant in Vietnam goes down for two weeks, which customer commitments are at risk?” and get a fully reasoned answer in seconds, built on live data instead of a report generated days earlier. The same access reaches beyond the planning team: a CFO can ask what a disruption means for revenue at risk, and a sales rep can ask whether a customer commitment is still safe, each from email, Microsoft Teams, Slack, or wherever they already work.

“Every function that has given people direct access to reasoning AI has been transformed by it. Supply chain can have that same advantage. ketteQ customers now respond to a disruption with ‘ask Quintus™’ or Quintus™ can figure it out.’ Quintus™ does not just advise. It acts. And you do not have to replace a single system to get it,” said Mike Landry, founder and CEO, ketteQ

“The first morning Quintus™ told us exactly what needed attention before we’d even logged in, it felt like the first time I used ChatGPT. You immediately know you can’t go back to working the old way,” said Stephanie Larson, Director of Supply Chain, Alliance Consumer Group.

Running in Production, Not on a Roadmap
This is not a preview of something planned for the future. Quintus™ is running live in production today, across a growing list of companies in different industries, including Alliance Consumer Group, JCI, Mativ, NCR, and Zeus, with more going live over the next several months. At Alliance Consumer Group, inventory turns improved from 2.75 to 4.0, with real-time available-to-promise answers delivered inside Salesforce in under 15 seconds, live, on sales calls.

Four Requirements
Free-Range AI™ is not a positioning claim. It is an architectural standard. To qualify, a supply chain AI must have:

Built for Supply Chain. Quintus™ is trained on the complexity of supply chain data and decisions, not general-purpose AI retrofitted for the category.

Adaptive, End-to-End. Quintus™ reasons across the full data chain and rewires its logic in real time as conditions change, rather than working from a static, siloed snapshot.

Solves in Real Time. PolymatiQ™, ketteQ’s patent-pending agentic solver, runs thousands of constrained planning scenarios simultaneously and returns the optimal answer in seconds. Other planning engines run scenarios sequentially, in cycles measured in hours, which is why their AI can only report on what has already been computed rather than reasoning live.

Runs on Any Platform. Quintus™ deploys above SAP IBP, Kinaxis, o9, Blue Yonder, or any combination within four to eight weeks, with no rip-and-replace. Other vendors’ AI is free-range only within the cage of their own platform: it cannot become a neutral decisioning layer above a rival’s system without cannibalizing its own business model. ketteQ has no stack to protect.

The architecture behind these four requirements was not retrofitted. ketteQ designed its architecture to be open starting in 2019. That openness is what enabled it to become AI-native as the technology matured, well before the market called any of this agentic. Most supply chain planning vendors built their platforms in the 1990s and 2000s and are bolting AI on top of them today, which means that going back to fix them would require replacing the product entirely.

Free-Range AI™ travels with one companion phrase, everywhere, without exception: Fully Governed. Every decision Quintus™ makes is auditable, explainable, and subject to human override, because a scripted AI that cannot answer the question a supply chain leader is asking right now is not a safe AI. It is a failed one. Full audit and full human override are built into the foundation, not added later.

Availability
Quintus™ is generally available today. Deployments begin in four to eight weeks. Existing ERP and planning systems stay in place, and no rip-and-replace is required. Live demos are available for media and analysts on request. Visit www.ketteQ.com/Quintus for more details.

About ketteQ
ketteQ is the supply chain orchestration company powered by Free-Range AI™. Quintus™, its AI intelligence, is the only supply chain agent that reasons over any question, executes any action, and addresses any use case, unscripted, unconstrained, and fully governed, across Planning Solutions and Execution Solutions, above any ERP or planning platform the customer already runs. Powered by PolymatiQ™, ketteQ’s patent-pending agentic solver that runs thousands of constrained planning scenarios simultaneously and returns the optimal answer in seconds, Quintus™ deploys in four to eight weeks with no rip-and-replace. ketteQ was founded in 2018 and has been running AI-native supply chain planning and orchestration in production before the category had a name. For more information, visit ketteQ.com.

Media Contact:

Nicole Taylor 
nicole.taylor@ketteq.com
770.633.1754

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SOURCE ketteQ Holdings Inc.

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Artizent Partners with Insurity to Strengthen Insurance Modernization, Engineering Collaboration, and Delivery Capabilities

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This partnership brings together Artizent’s insurance expertise, engineering, and delivery capabilities with Insurity’s cloud-based insurance software to help insurers modernize faster and scale with greater confidence.

EDISON, N.J., Aug. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Artizent, a global enterprise engineering company focused on cloud, data, software, quality engineering, and AI-enabled transformation for enterprises, has announced a new strategic partnership with Insurity, a leading provider of cloud-based software for insurance carriers, brokers, and MGAs, to help insurers execute modernization initiatives more effectively and bring new capabilities to market faster.

The partnership brings together Artizent’s engineering, implementation, and insurance expertise and Insurity’s cloud-based insurance software, giving carriers, MGAs, and brokers access to the technical depth and delivery capabilities required to modernize core operations and deliver transformation initiatives with greater confidence. Backed by experience designing, building, and operating enterprise systems in complex, regulated industries, Artizent further strengthens Insurity’s global partner ecosystem.

“As P&C insurers mandate AI for total enterprise transformation, the challenge has shifted from technological strategy to operational execution, specifically, rewiring legacy operating models to unlock new value,” said Rajib Chatterjee, Senior Vice President – Insurance Practice at Artizent. “Insurity’s cloud platforms provide the essential digital foundation for this shift. By integrating our AI-led engineering discipline and P&C insurance domain depth with Insurity’s platform expertise, Artizent enables our joint clients worldwide to de-risk their modernization initiatives, accelerate time-to-impact, and establish operational resilience.”

“P&C insurers are under increasing pressure to modernize while delivering measurable business value from AI investments,” said Bilal Tak, Head – Catalyst Studio at Artizent. “Many organizations have the right vision but need the right combination of technology, industry expertise, and execution to turn that vision into results. Our partnership with Insurity brings those strengths together, bringing together Insurity’s trusted cloud platforms with Artizent’s insurance engineering expertise and AI capabilities to help insurers modernize faster, improve operational efficiency, and deliver better outcomes for their customers.”

Initially, the companies will focus on expanding engineering and implementation support for customer modernization initiatives. Over time, Artizent and Insurity expect to broaden their collaboration across larger enterprise transformation programs, scalable delivery models, and strategic market opportunities.

“Our customers are looking for partners that can combine practical delivery experience with real technical depth,” said Jeff Weiner, AVP, System Integrator Alliance Partnerships at Insurity. “Artizent brings a strong understanding of insurance operations, implementation execution, and engineering collaboration. This partnership expands our ability to help insurers move faster, modernize with less friction, and build for long-term growth.”

The partnership is designed to provide insurers with more than additional implementation capacity. By combining Artizent’s engineering and delivery capabilities with Insurity’s cloud insurance platform, the companies can help customers simplify complex transformation initiatives, accelerate time to value, and execute modernization programs with greater certainty.

To learn more about Insurity’s partnership with Artizent, please contact Elizabeth.Hutchinson@insurity.com or visit www.insurity.com.

About Artizent

Backed by TA Associates, a leading global private equity firm, Artizent is an enterprise engineering company built for mission-critical transformation. The company helps organizations modernize core platforms, engineer better software, unlock trusted data, strengthen cloud foundations, improve quality, and apply AI-enabled solutions where they create measurable business value. Focused on banking, financial services, insurance, and other regulated industries, Artizent works where technology must perform at scale, with precision, resilience, and accountability. With a global delivery model across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Serbia, and India, Artizent brings the engineering discipline and execution focus enterprises need to move faster and operate better. For more information, visit www.artizent.com.

About Insurity

Insurity is a leading provider of cloud-based software for insurance carriers, brokers, and MGAs. Insurity is trusted by 22 of the top 25 P&C carriers and 7 of the top 10 MGAs in the U.S. and has over 400 cloud-based deployments. Through its best-in-class digital platform, deep domain expertise, and robust analytics offerings, Insurity empowers customers to modernize their core systems, optimize operations, and deliver superior policyholder experiences. Insurity is a portfolio company of GI Partners and TA Associates. For more information, visit www.insurity.com.

Media contact:
Artizent Inc.
Public Relations
+1 (732) 985-9533
marketing@artizent.com

 

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SOURCE Artizent Inc.

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