He Sold A Company To Alibaba And Has Now Raised $50 Million To Build A Quality-First AI Coding Platform To Help With Writing, Testing, And Reviewing Code

Itamar Friedman’s entrepreneurial journey reflects curiosity, calculated risks, and forward-looking vision. His story begins with teaching himself computer networking in high school, and then co-founding a machine learning startup acquired by Alibaba.

Now, Itamar leads Qodo in defining the future of software quality in an AI-driven world. In this insightful interview, he offers valuable insights for founders navigating the process of building, scaling, and exiting ventures, as well as guiding a company through an acquisition.

Itamar also discusses doing things differently when it comes to culture at his latest company and how to think about ideas that may be ahead of their time. He draws lessons from his passion for sailing and traces similarities between the sport and entrepreneurship.

Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.

Early Curiosity and the Path to Entrepreneurship

Born and raised in Israel, Itamar found himself captivated by computers early on, though not without some humble beginnings. He recalls one of his earliest tech missteps: confidently raising his hand in class when a teacher asked about Windows, thinking it referred to actual windows.

Fast forward a few years, and that same student was building his high school’s network, computer network, and operating system, managing everything from installation to operation. Essentially, Itamar was running a web development shop in the 1990s.

He recalls the exciting ecosystem of tech, innovation, problem-solving, and learning that he was immersed in while in university. After earning degrees in computer science and machine learning, Itamar initially resisted the urge to start his own company.

Instead, he joined a startup that was later acquired by NVIDIA. His reasoning was simple but wise: “I’m not Mark Zuckerberg,” he said, emphasizing the value of gaining experience and waiting for a problem worth solving.

Although Itamar had achieved an initial understanding of building a company, he had yet to find a mission and passion that would drive him to change the world. After the acquisition, he was ready to take ownership of his future and co-founded a company.

Founding Visualead and the Road to Acquisition

Itamar’s problem came in 2012, when smartphones were exploding in popularity, but their ability to interact with the physical world lagged behind. Itamar and his co-founders launched Visualead to bridge that gap by developing machine learning and computer vision capabilities for phones.

The team worked on enabling smartphones to scan logos and QR codes, unlocking applications in mobile peer-to-peer payments and advertising. This technology became quite popular on the East side of the world, where they skipped PCs and moved directly to mobile phones.

Users were quite ahead on payments, which led to several other related activities. Visualead’s early traction in Asia, particularly China, led to a major client relationship with Alibaba. That partnership ultimately led to an acquisition, rumored to be in the $50M range.

Inside the Alibaba Deal: A Founder’s Honest Take

Offering visibility into the acquisition journey, Itamar reveals how an exit wasn’t on their immediate horizon. He and his co-founders were initiating their series B round, which was almost preemptive for them. Both Alibaba and Visualeads had alternatives, so they were well-positioned to negotiate.

Itamar also recalls how they had a great relationship with their investors. However, he was unclear about how they would progress through the series C and D rounds. Accepting the acquisition offer seemed like a great decision.

The acquisition was both a proud and painful moment for Itamar. On the one hand, it was validation and proof that a first-time team could build meaningful technology and negotiate from a position of strength.

On the other, Itamar admits that selling felt like a compromise. “For me, anything less than making a huge influence on the world is a failure,” he says. Still, the experience at Alibaba was transformative.

Itamar worked within the Damo Academy, contributing to foundational machine learning models, and stayed for four and a half years, which was well beyond his vesting schedule. His decision was driven by the fact that the learning environment was so rich.

Itamar learned a lot from his managers, colleagues, team members, and the company. Notably, he signed the acquisition papers from a hospital room as his first child was being born. “That’s how crazy startup life can get,” he laughs.

Qodo: Code Quality for the AI Age

After leaving Alibaba, Itamar spent time reading science fiction and developing a vision for the future of software. Two books, 20A1 and The Three-Body Problem, shaped his thinking around artificial intelligence and vision for the future.

Itamar strongly believes in ABZ planning, which involves staying ahead of changing trends and transformations. For instance, Wikipedia can have different information from week to week, depending on how knowledge evolves. Itamar asks the questions:

• A – What am I doing right now?
• B – What isn’t going to be my next step?
• Z – Where do I see the world? What’s the end game?

In Itamar’s opinion, if you lose A, B, or Z, it means you’re doing something wrong.

The Qodo Business Model

Itamar came to believe that as AI takes over more of the software creation process and helps developers generate code, verifying that software’s quality, security, and intent will become mission-critical. That belief led to the founding of Qodo.

Qodo’s core mission is ensuring that AI-generated code meets rigorous standards for functionality, safety, and alignment with business intent. With AI tools now generating between 30% to 95% of new code at some organizations, the volume is exploding, but the guardrails are lacking.

Qodo offers open-source and freemium tools that naturally grow into enterprise solutions. The company’s value proposition is resonating deeply: they’ve seen demo requests and virality spike without outbound marketing. Customers often grow from 100 seats to thousands within months.

Qodo now has offices in Boston and New York and is quickly scaling in the US. Itamar reveals that they have had a robust Net Revenue Retention (NRR) every quarter thanks to Qodo’s virality.

Qodo’s tools can be downloaded and played even if the platform is hosting them. It has features more focused on teams and enterprise. As Itamar points out, software development is a team sport, particularly in large organizations.

Qodo monetizes its tools mostly on the enterprise level. The company serves Fortune 500 and Fortune 5000 companies, as well as banks, financial institutions, e-commerce companies, and healthcare organizations using the platform.

Redefining Culture and Execution

One of the biggest lessons Itamar took into his second company was the importance of culture. As a young engineer, he once dismissed company values like speed and reliability as corporate fluff. Today, he sees culture as a strategic pillar.

At Qodo, Itamar and co-founder Dedy Kredo embedded cultural values from the very beginning. Among them: “Move fast with confidence.” This principle ensures that team members can make decisions quickly and stay aligned, especially in high-growth and high-uncertainty environments.

As Itamar puts it, “Culture drinks execution for sport.” Another value they instituted during recruitment, which has greatly helped is persistence, a quality that is extremely important in startups.

Raising Capital the Right Way

Despite launching during a downturn, Qodo raised a $10M seed round in late 2022, before writing a single line of code. A year later, they raised an additional $40M in a Series A round led by top-tier VCs, including TLV Partners, Square Peg, Canva, Robin Hood, Sousa Ventures, and Vine Ventures.

Storytelling is everything that Itamar Friedman was able to master. The key is capturing the essence of what you are doing in 15 to 20 slides. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley legend (see it here) where the most critical slides are highlighted.

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Even with a 90-person team, Qodo operates efficiently through bottom-up and middle-out adoption strategies. The company remains capital-efficient, with most of the raised capital still in the bank.

A Future Where Qodo is Essential

Looking ahead, Itamar envisions a world where software is generated dynamically in real-time, even in everyday applications like e-commerce, banking, or finance. In such a future, quality control won’t be optional; it will be existential.

Imagine an AI writing code for a new shopping feature. Without oversight, that AI might tap into a user’s private social data to offer personalized color suggestions. Qodo’s tools ensure that such functionality complies with ethical, technical, and legal standards automatically.

“We’re building a world where AI-generated software doesn’t create damage,” Itamar says. “And to do that, Qodo has to exist.” Its dashboard displays all the necessary checks and balances, as well as tests on both the front and back end.

These checks are critical since no human will review the AI-generated code. Since the same features and software can be developed in different ways, having the protection of a dedicated system that checks is essential. That’s how we’ll enable a world where software is in our hands.

Itamar Friedman on Focus, Leadership, and Lessons from the Sea

Reflecting on his entrepreneurial journey, Itamar often returns to one piece of advice he wishes he could give his younger self–focus on one thing. The idea might sound counterintuitive, especially in a world that celebrates multitasking and polymaths, but he believes deep focus is underrated.

During his first startup, Itamar simultaneously completed a master’s degree in computer science. Although he chose not to pursue a PhD due to the demands of the startup, he pushed himself to finish the master’s program alongside building the company.

Looking back, Itamar acknowledges that while the degree has offered value over the years, trying to excel in multiple major endeavors at once spread him too thin. He contrasts this with founders like Elon Musk, who are often seen as successfully managing multiple ventures.

However, Itamar points out that even such legendary entrepreneurs began with intense focus in their early careers. “I should have either gone all-in on a PhD, fully committing to drilling down into a problem I deeply believed in, or thrown myself completely into the startup,” he explains.

At the time, friends and family encouraged Itamar’s multitasking, seeing it as a sign of ambition and capability. However, with hindsight, he believes more clarity and discipline would have led to greater depth. His advice today is clear: make a decision, commit to it, and run deep with it.

Course-correction is always possible, but at any given moment, entrepreneurs should be decisive and singular in their focus.

Parallels Between Sailing and Entrepreneurship

Another powerful metaphor that shapes Itamar’s leadership style comes from an unexpected yet meaningful source: sailing. As a passionate sailor and skipper, he finds the parallels between sailing and entrepreneurship both frequent and insightful.

“Every time I go sailing, even for a week, I see the resemblance,” Itamar says. As skipper, he’s the captain and is responsible for the journey, but success hinges on teamwork. The same is true of startup leadership.

Itamar emphasizes the importance of setting clear expectations, building trust, and encouraging team members to think big. “You’re not doing this to sail with minions,” he quips. “You want a crew that thinks for themselves, anticipates problems, and contributes to the journey.”

These sailing trips often include different groups of people, giving Itamar fresh opportunities to refine his leadership style.

Final Thoughts

Itamar Friedman’s story is one of conviction, thoughtful pacing, and deep curiosity. From selling his company to one of the world’s largest tech giants to shaping the next era of safe, scalable AI-generated software, he’s walking a path many founders aspire to.

Itamar’s advice? Don’t just build a startup, create with purpose. Know your “A,” your “B,” and your “Z.” And never forget: culture isn’t fluff. It’s your compass.

As Itamar continues to navigate this evolving space with Qodo, he remains open to connecting with others who share a similar vision. “The future of software is intelligent, and it’s collaborative,” he says. “Let’s build it together.”

Listen to the full podcast episode to know more, including:

• Early focus and practical experience shaped Itamar’s path, from building school networks in Israel to launching startups acquired by global giants.
• Visualead’s QR and computer vision innovation led to an acquisition by Alibaba, where Itamar gained deep insights working at the forefront of machine learning.
• Post-acquisition, Itamar founded Qodo to ensure AI-generated code is safe, secure, and aligned with business intent, anticipating software’s AI-driven future.
• Qodo’s open-source and enterprise tools are rapidly scaling, driven by virality and adoption from major industries like banking and healthcare.
• Itamar emphasizes culture as a strategic asset, embedding values like “move fast with confidence” and “persistence” into Qodo from day one.
• He raised $50M in capital efficiently, before product launch, showcasing investor belief in his vision and Qodo’s critical market need.
• Drawing lessons from sailing, Itamar highlights the importance of trust, clarity, and team autonomy in navigating both sea and startup challenges.

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Keep in mind that storytelling is everything in fundraising. In this regard, for a winning pitch deck to help you, take a look at the template created by Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley legend (see it here), which I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. 

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that founders worldwide are using to raise millions below.

 

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