British unicorn launches DeepCode takeover bid

Snyk is a company based in the UK that is valued at approximately 2.34 billion Swiss francs. It specializes in security tools that help developers to proof their coding. Snyk is now seeking to add Swiss expertise to its ranks. According to a press release, Snyk is taking over DeepCode, a company established in 2016 as a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH).

According to a report from ETH Zurich, DeepCode has developed the first platform based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is able to proof the security of coding. The system has the capacity to learn from the data source – program codes, in this particular instance – while at the same time remaining transparent and interpretable for humans, the press release explains. This means that “a human can examine the model and introduce changes if needed, a capability beyond any existing modern deep learning models”, ETH Zurich explains.

Peter McKay, CEO of Snyk, highlighted in a blog post that the AI system developed by DeepCode works up to ten times faster than similar solutions already available on the market. In terms of programming activities, this facilitates real-time workflows.

Once the takeover has been completed, the AI solution from DeepCode is to be integrated in existing Snyk products. In this way, the Zurich-based start-up is getting closer to its original aim of reaching millions of users around the world.