Brothers Build GitHub Rival in Finland, Raise $4.5M

Akshay and Anirudh Oppiliappan are solving a problem that didn't exist when GitHub launched in 2008: how do developers review massive amounts of AI-generated code efficiently? Their answer is Tangled, a collaboration platform built specifically for an era where artificial intelligence writes software alongside humans.

The brothers started Tangled about a year ago while working at tech companies in London and Helsinki. Both had experience with developer tools and kept bumping into the same frustration: existing platforms weren't keeping pace with how quickly AI agents can now generate code.

"The burden is around reviewing this code and helping build coherent software," Akshay explains. When large language models can write thousands of lines in seconds, the real challenge shifts from creation to quality control.

Tangled's secret weapon is something called "stacked PRs," a system companies like Google and Meta use internally. Instead of reviewing changes one massive chunk at a time like GitHub does, developers can stack smaller changes on top of each other. It's faster, more efficient, and translates perfectly to reviewing AI-generated code.

The approach is already resonating. Without spending on marketing, Tangled has signed up over 8,000 users and nearly 6,000 repositories. That organic growth caught the attention of investors, leading to their $4.5 million seed round last month from byFounders, Bain Capital Crypto, and Antler.

The Ripple Effect

The brothers envision a future where AI agents work autonomously while humans stay "in the loop" at a higher level, like conductors leading an orchestra. It's not about replacing programmers but repositioning them to make architectural decisions while AI handles the heavy lifting.

Their global operation reflects this future-forward thinking. The company headquarters sits in Helsinki, Akshay works from London, and engineers are based in India and South Korea. It's a distributed team building tools for a distributed, AI-powered world.

Despite building tools that let AI write code, Anirudh still tells aspiring developers to learn programming fundamentals. Understanding computer systems at a deep level remains essential because only humans can make those high-level decisions that guide the AI agents.

The seed funding will help Tangled expand its team to tackle an ambitious product roadmap that reimagines developer collaboration for the next decade.