Diffblue Secures £1M grant from Innovate UK

Diffblue, a provider of software development tools, has received £1M in grant funding from Innovate UK.

Diffblue is part of the ITEA GENIUS project, which is geared towards Generative AI for the software development life cycle, and will be used to refine its product which automates the software development lifecycle (SDLC). 

Diffblue is using reinforcement learning, a machine learning technique, to improve the efficiency and accuracy of its AI tools. Unlike traditional large language model (LLM)-based solutions, Diffblue’s approach focuses on learning from real code execution, in an effort to produce more reliable outputs and a reduction in hallucinations . The company’s flagship product, Diffblue Cover, is designed to autonomously generate high-quality unit tests. 

By automating this critical but time-consuming part of the SDLC, Diffblue aims to help development teams save time, reduce human error, and improve software quality. 

"We are excited to receive this grant from Innovate UK and to work with our partners on the GENIUS project,” said Peter Schrammel, CTO and co-founder of Diffblue. “AI is rapidly changing the way software is developed, and at Diffblue, we are channeling this shift to bring scalable development solutions to enterprises so they can innovate with greater speed and confidence."

The GENIUS initiative, a multi-country collaboration, brings together a consortium of industry leaders and academic institutions, including Siemens, Fraunhofer, Philips, Vaadin, and Ontario Tech University. The project’s aim is to explore the potential of generative AI in addressing the inefficiencies of manual software engineering processes and accelerating the adoption of AI technologies across the software industry.