AI hallucinates when writing code. A new startup founded by serial entrepreneurs is solving the problem by giving agents access to open-source code. GitHits is launching the beta version of its product today.

GitHits has raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding, which it will use to develop the “Google of code search.” The investors included Finnish VC Vendep Capital, Estonian VC Trind, and notable angel investors such as Peter Sarlin, Zach Shelby, and Jerry Liu.

“Our vision is to index all public open-source code. With this funding, we are launching the beta version of the product today, and the first commercial version later this year,” says CEO Jaakko Timonen.

“OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have left a gap in the market. GitHits doesn’t compete with Codex, Claude Code or Cursor, but complements them by bringing open-source code as context for agents to end retry loops and reduce token consumption,” says CTO Olli-Pekka Heinisuo.

Heinisuo has extensive experience in the open-source ecosystem. He previously developed opencv-python, a software package with more than 100 million downloads, which was also used by NASA in its Ingenuity helicopter that flew on Mars.

“Coding agents are great at navigating your local codebase. The problem is that modern software doesn’t stop at the repository boundary. A large part of the system lives in frameworks, libraries, SDKs, and other open-source dependencies. Agents can’t inspect those nearly as well, so AI has to guess, and it produces code that looks correct but doesn’t work in practice,” Heinisuo adds.

GitHits offers AI coding agents a set of tools for finding working examples of open-source implementations, and for inspecting software components, including dependencies and vulnerabilities. To enable that, GitHits is building an AI-native, version-aware index of all public open-source code.

Competition in AI search is intense. US-based Exa raised a $250 million Series C in May at a $2.2 billion valuation to build search for AI agents. “Exa is building a general-purpose search for AI. GitHits focuses only on code,” says Heinisuo.

The idea for GitHits was born when Heinisuo was working at the AI consulting company Softlandia. For years, he had been frustrated by repeatedly giving colleagues the same tip when they could not find information related to open-source code. The tip was based on manual search, and Heinisuo realized the problem could be solved with AI.

Heinisuo’s colleague Jaakko Timonen became excited about the idea, and the two set out to spin out a new company with Softlandia’s support. They assembled a team of four experienced co-founders and attracted investors.

"We'd been watching GitHits since it was just an idea, and what convinced us was the team that formed around it. Olli-Pekka is a quiet legend in open source and has lived inside this problem for years. At this stage you invest in people, and this was an easy call," says Timo Felin, Partner at Vendep Capital."

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GitHits is launching a free beta version of its CLI tool on the popular Product Hunt website at 03:01 a.m. EDT today.

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Facts

• GitHits Inc was founded in October 2025 – spun out of Softlandia Venture Studio into its own company in an arrangement where GitHits Inc bought the product rights from Softlandia, and Softlandia reinvested in the company.
• GitHits has a team of six people. Three are in Finland, and the rest are in the United States, Argentina, and Pakistan.
• Heinisuo is one of Softlandia’s four co-founders.
• Timonen previously founded NoNoNo, a startup that helped consumers resolve complaints with companies in the U.S. market.
• Investors:
  
  • Vendep Capital led the funding round and has previously invested in unicorns such as AlphaSense and HostAway. 
  • Trind has previously invested in Ready Player Me, a unicorn acquired by Netflix in 2025.
  • Peter Sarlin: investor in unicorns such as Lovable, Legora, Tandem Health, and ICEYE.
  • Zach Shelby: Born in the United States and educated in Oulu, Zach Shelby previously founded the AI company Edge Impulse, acquired by U.S.-based Qualcomm in 2025, and IoT company Sensinode, acquired by the British company Arm in 2013.
  • Jerry Liu is the co-founder of LlamaIndex, a company that provides open-source tools.

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