Spain-based Appentra scores €1.8 million to support programmers in parallelising software

Spanish startup Appentra, a spin-off from the University of A Coruña, has raised €1.8 million in new funding in a round co-led by Armilar Venture Partners and K Fund, and joined by Caixa Capital Risc, Xesgalicia and Unirisco.

Appentra's aim is to radically change software development for multicore computers by helping programmers shift to parallel computing, which it claims is among very few options to continue to cope with the increasing demand stemming from the rise of AI, the Internet of Things, big data and complex hardware.

The deep tech startup posits that the development of high-performance parallel software, which runs much faster compared to traditional architectures, is vital for companies trying to defend their competitive advantages or create new ones. However, accelerating the software runtime through code parallelisation, and detecting and generating bug-free parallel code is a high mountain to climb for any coder, which is where Appentra's software - Parallelware Analyzer - comes in.

Appentra claims it is the only static code analysis tool in the market today that helps to enforce parallel programming best-practice recommendations in order to prepare the code, enabling everyone to make the best use of parallel computing hardware from the multi-cores in a simple laptop to the fastest supercomputers on the planet.

Pedro Ribeiro Santos, a partner at Armilar Venture Partners, said:

"Over the course of the last decade we have been watching how computing architectures are incorporating more (and different) parallel processing units, and yet the vast majority of applications are still being developed under a “standard” sequential coding approach. Parallel code can truly potentiate real-time systems and faster or more elaborate decision models but it is a complex discipline and there is a shortage of skilled parallel developers. Appentra has the potential to be in the driver’s seat of this huge opportunity, helping developers build bug-free parallel code."