With $135M raise, Chamath Palihapitiya goes all-in as CEO of AI coding startup 8090 Labs

For startup founders and investors, Chamath Palihapitiya’s leap from venture capital back to an operating role is a telling signal. When a billionaire podcaster with a massive platform and deep pockets bets his time on a single company, it validates not just the market but the very approach. The $135 million infusion at the Series A stage—a figure that rivals many growth rounds—places 8090 Labs in a position to move faster than typical early-stage ventures, with a war chest to establish enterprise credibility from day one.

Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire venture capitalist and co-host of the All-In podcast, has taken the helm of his AI coding startup 8090 Labs, announcing a $135 million Series A funding round led by Salesforce Ventures. The raise, revealed on June 29, 2026, marks a significant escalation in the race to build enterprise-grade AI coding assistants, and it signals Palihapitiya’s full-time return to an operating role for the first time since his early days at Facebook. The funding round drew a star-studded cohort of investors, including Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo, David Sacks’ Craft Ventures, and fellow All-In co-hosts David Friedberg and Jason Calacanis, as well as angel investors Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, and Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora. Palihapitiya founded 8090 Labs in January 2024 specifically to address the gap between “vibe-coded” prototypes and production-quality enterprise software. Its product, Software Factory, promises to empower corporate programming teams with AI tools that include audit trails and other controls essential for regulated industries. The Series A announcement coincided with Palihapitiya declaring on X that he would serve as CEO, a move he compared to the early social media boom that defined his career at Facebook. “Since I left Facebook, I was waiting for a moment like this to return to a full-time operating role,” he 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.”

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Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire venture capitalist and co-host of the All-In podcast, has taken the helm of his AI coding startup 8090 Labs, announcing a $135 million Series A funding round led by Salesforce Ventures.

The $135 million round is unusually large for a Series A, placing 8090 Labs among the most well-funded early-stage AI startups. This capital infusion, combined with Palihapitiya’s personal network and operating experience, positions the company to compete aggressively in a market already crowded with offerings from GitHub Copilot, Amazon CodeWhisperer, and a host of smaller players. However, 8090 Labs’ explicit focus on enterprise controls—such as auditability and code provenance—differentiates it from many consumer-oriented coding tools. The participation of Salesforce Ventures and the CEOs of Palo Alto Networks and Quora as angels suggests strategic interest from major technology platforms. For enterprise customers, the promise is not just faster code but compliant, secure, and maintainable software.