Generative AI is now embedded in modern software development — but most companies still struggle to measure how (or whether) it actually improves engineering productivity. Milestone, an Israeli startup, has raised $10 million in seed funding to fix exactly that.
The round was co-led by Heavybit and Hanaco Ventures, with additional backing from Atlassian Ventures, GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, former AT&T CEO John Donovan, and other high-profile angels. Customers already include Kayak, Monday.com, and Sapiens.
Measuring AI’s real impact on engineering
Milestone gives organizations a unified platform that correlates AI tool usage with engineering outcomes — including feature velocity, code quality, bug origin, and team performance.
To do this, the platform integrates four core data sources:
- the company’s codebase,
- project management tools,
- team structures, and
- the AI coding tools in use.
The result is what CEO and co-founder Liad Elidan calls a “GenAI data lake” — a high-fidelity view of how AI coding assistants are actually being used and whether they’re delivering measurable returns.
According to Elidan, the product helps leaders answer the questions everyone is now asking:
- Is AI-generated code introducing bugs?
- Which teams are getting the biggest productivity lift?
- Should we expand or reduce licenses?
- Are we shipping features faster because of AI?
So far, he says, customers consistently upgrade their AI usage once Milestone makes the ROI clear.
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A founding story shaped by distance
Milestone’s CTO Professor Stephen Barrett teaches computer science at Trinity College Dublin, where Elidan was once his student. The pair built software projects together for years — without ever meeting in person — before deciding to launch a startup focused on engineering efficiency.
Their timing aligned with the Cambrian explosion of AI coding tools: GitHub Copilot now counts more than 20 million users, and agentic AI workflows are emerging rapidly.
“A lot of the ways we used to think about engineering are going to have to change,” Barrett said. “AI is filling out the team, and engineers are now becoming managers.”
Built for the enterprise — and only the enterprise
From the beginning, Milestone chose to serve larger organizations only, even turning away smaller prospects. That discipline, Elidan says, sharpened product direction and ensured the company built the compliance, governance, and reporting capabilities enterprises require.
To support that strategy, Milestone has formed integrations or partnerships with GitHub, Augment Code, Qodo, Continue, and Atlassian.
Despite rapid adoption inside engineering, Elidan says Milestone will not expand into other functions like marketing:
“Focus is what got us here — and we’re keeping it.”
About Milestone
Milestone is an enterprise platform that helps organizations measure and optimize the impact of AI coding tools. By correlating AI usage with engineering metrics across codebases, workflows, and teams, Milestone shows companies where AI accelerates delivery, where it introduces risk, and how to maximize ROI from generative AI adoption.
