Coda

History

2024

Texting assistance service Grammarly bought Coda

On December 17, 2024, text assistance service Grammarly announced the acquisition of Coda, a startup developing a collaboration platform. The amount of the transaction as of the specified date has not been disclosed.

Under the terms of the agreement, Coda CEO and co-founder Shishir Mehrotra will become Grammarly's new CEO. At the same time, the former CEO of Grammarly, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, will remain on the company's board of directors after the transfer of powers. He will work alongside Mehrotra as a consultant.

𝓲

Freepik

The deal is scheduled to be completed in January 2025 after obtaining the necessary permits. The acquisition of Coda is announced months after Grammarly hired new finance and technical directors in preparation for a possible initial public offering (IPO). Mehrotra says his goal is to build a forward-looking business, and going public is an important milestone along the way.

By acquiring Coda and its technology, Grammarly aims to create more tools to help with various work tasks. One of the key areas of development is the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies. Grammarly already offers a smart AI-based writing assistant, whereas Coda creates tools to collaborate and improve performance using AI algorithms.

According to Bloomberg, the Coda startup was valued at $1.4 billion in 2021 after the Series D funding round. Grammarly's capitalization at that time was approximately $13 billion. Grammarly products are used daily by about 40 million people. The company also works with corporate clients.^[1]

Termination of work in Russia

On September 12, 2024, the Coda collaboration service stopped working in Russia. The company has not made an official statement. On the Coda technical support page, a user request appeared under the pseudonym Evgenii_M - he asked if the Coda management intends to curtail access to the project for Russians. The answer was yes. Coda and a number of other cloud services curtailed work in Russia due to US sanctions, which entered into force on September 12, 2024. This package of sanctions involves a ban on the provision of cloud services in the Russian Federation.

Notes