Merly
Palo Alto, US · Founded 2021 · Delaware corporation · 2 known investors
Develops machine programming software intended to automate software development and improve software quality.
Also known as Merly Inc.
Founders & leadership
Merly was founded in 2021 by Justin Gottschlich and Urs Muff.
Board
Investors · 2
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$6.8M disclosed across 1 of 2 rounds · 2024–2025
- Undisclosed amountSeedJan 2025Source ↗
▶$6.8MraisedJan 2024 · 14 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Brentt BaltimoreDirector
- Justin GottschlichExecutive Officer, Director
- Paul GottschlichExecutive Officer
- Offering amount
- $6.8M
- Amount sold
- $6.8M
- First sale
- Jan 2024
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2021
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Merly Inc. is a machine programming startup founded by Justin ("Goju") Gottschlich, who serves as chief executive officer and chief scientist. The company's stated aim is to build machine programming systems that help create better software, faster, working on two linked objectives: increasing the rate at which software is developed and improving the quality of the resulting code.
Merly's approach draws on machine programming, a field that applies automation to the writing, maintenance and testing of code and to quality attributes such as performance, correctness, security and maintainability. The company applies a range of automation techniques to these problems, including deep neural networks and formal methods. Machine programming is characterized by its founder as a fusion of machine learning, programming languages, software engineering and computing systems.
Founding story
Merly was founded by Justin Gottschlich as his second startup; his first was a technology company he created at age 25, around the online game Nodeka. Before Merly he founded and led the Machine Programming Research group at Intel Labs, where he was principal AI scientist and director, and he has held academic appointments as an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University teaching "Machine Programming" (CS 329M), and previously adjunct positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Traction
Work by the founder's team, jointly with MIT and Microsoft, received two awards at SIGMOD 2021.
▸Full profile — market position, technology
Market position
Merly operates in machine programming, an emerging research-driven field concerned with automating software development and improving software quality. Its founder chairs the steering committee of the ACM SIGPLAN Machine Programming Symposium (MAPS) and research associated with him has been covered by outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Communications of the ACM, The New York Times, MIT Technology Review and VentureBeat.
Technology
Merly works on machine programming systems that use automation to develop and improve software. The techniques cited include deep neural networks and formal methods. One production-quality machine programming system associated with the team is AutoPerf, which has been publicly demonstrated.
Compiled by commissioned research from 5 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Competitors · 5
by search overlap
Companies competing with Merly for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsA team led by Merly founder Justin Gottschlich, working jointly with MIT and Microsoft, won two awards at SIGMOD 2021.
A new demo of AutoPerf, described as one of the team's production-quality machine programming systems, was published.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structureIn the news
▸Research sources · 5
primary sources listed
- Justin ("Goju") Gottschlichsites.google.com · web
5 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Merly do?
- Merly is a machine programming company building AI systems intended to speed software development and improve software quality.
- Who founded Merly?
- Merly was founded by Justin Gottschlich, Urs Muff in 2021.
- Who are Merly's investors?
- Merly's investors include JAZZ Venture Partners, Greycroft.
- How much funding has Merly raised?
- Merly has disclosed $6.8M raised across 1 of its 2 known rounds.
- Where is Merly headquartered?
- Merly is headquartered in Palo Alto, US.