Kite Raises $17 Million for Local AI Coding Assistant
Kite secures $17 million in Series A funding to expand its offline, AI-powered code completion tool for Python developers. The latest update runs entirely locally to provide faster suggestions without sending code to the cloud.
Kite raises $17 million in a Series A funding round led by Trinity Ventures to advance its AI-powered developer environment. The tool provides real-time code snippet suggestions for Python programmers and now operates entirely locally rather than relying on cloud servers. This shift allows the software to function offline while keeping user code completely private on their own machines.
A notable group of tech leaders participates in this investment round, including GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and founders from major companies like PayPal, Dropbox, and Twitch. Kite plans to use the new capital to grow its research and development team, with a specific focus on accelerating developer productivity. Trinity Ventures general partner Dan Scholnick joins Kite's board of directors as part of the deal.
Founded by former Xobni CEO Adam Smith, Kite aims to make writing code fluid and enjoyable by eliminating the need to search the web for mundane code patterns. The latest version introduces a Line-of-Code Completions feature and reduces suggestion latency from up to 200 milliseconds down to just 5 to 20 milliseconds. The tool currently integrates with top Python IDEs, including Visual Studio Code, PyCharm, and Atom, and serves more than 30,000 developers worldwide.