Conduct raises $60M to speed up software modernization projects

Conduct AI Ltd today announced that it has raised $60 million in funding to enhance its namesake code modernization platform.

Index Ventures and ICONIQ co-led the Series A investment. They were joined by SAP SE along with returning backers Creandum, Lucid Capital and Booom.

The off-the-shelf software products that companies use often don’t contain all the features they require. As a result, their development teams add custom capabilities such as integrations with external applications. Such modifications can add up over time, which creates technical challenges.

Some enterprises have decades-old software customizations that few employees understand. In many cases, modernizing such components requires hiring outside experts. Another challenge is that legacy customizations’ documentation is often incomplete. Developers must manually uncover details such as whether removing a seemingly unnecessary code file might break an important feature.

Conduct sells an artificial intelligence platform that streamlines code modernization projects. When developers wish to add a feature to a heavily customized application, they can ask the platform to find the custom code modules that they will have to modify. The software displays an overview of each module’s purpose and the data that it processes.

The company says its platform also automates more complex tasks. Developers can enter a natural language description of the feature they wish to build and have the software create a step-by-step implementation plan. Furthermore, Conduct is capable of generating the necessary code files.

The platform tests the code that it produces for reliability and performance issues. For added measure, Conduct generates documentation that explains how each AI-generated component works. It automatically refreshes the explainer when developers make code changes. 

Conduct says its platform can speed up not only feature releases but also large-scale system upgrades. In particular, it can help companies switch from SAP’s legacy enterprise resource planning, or ERP, products to its newest S/4HANA platform. Such upgrades can take years to carry out manually.

One of the tasks involved in ERP upgrades is fit gap analysis. Developers create a spreadsheet that outlines each core feature of an ERP system, the current state of that feature and how it will be upgraded. Conduct automatically generates such documents, which can save upwards of weeks of manual work.

“Agents analyze source code, gather knowledge about how and why systems were customised, and reason with company-specific context, removing the costly, lengthy and high-risk manual work that bogs down transformation,” Conduct co-founders JP Haas, Philipp Hoefer and Henry Thompson wrote in a blog post. “A change that once took five months takes an afternoon.”

Conduct’s platform is mainly geared toward SAP projects. It will use its new funding round to add support for products from other enterprise technology companies including Salesforce Inc. and Oracle Corp. Additionally, the 35-person company plans to grow its U.S. workforce.

Photo: Conduct