The problem
CI builds and tests are slow and costly, and AI-written code is piling up waiting to be validated and merged
What they do
Faster, cheaper drop-in runners and caching for GitHub Actions CI, plus a coding agent
Traction ARR up 17x to tens of millions; 10,000+ customers, up from 5,000 in Aug
Hiring trend
- Open roles
- 20
- Ops roles
- 4
- Headcount
- ~30-59
Headcount ~21 → ~59 YoY on LinkedIn (+181%); open roles up to 20 (was ~7 per Alion, est.)
Hiring in
- New York
- San Francisco
Funding
- Last round
- $66M
- Stage
- Series C
- Date
- Oct 2026
Led by Sequoia Capital (Premji Invest, Peak XV, GV, Y Combinator participating)
- Hiring+1.520 open roles on the live job board (10–29 roles = +1.5)
- Funding recency+1.5Series C · $66M, Oct 2026 (this month): 6 months or less = +1.5
- Traction+1.5Strong growth: ARR up 17x to tens of millions; 10,000+ customers, up from 5,000 in Aug
- Red flags0None found in the last 24 months
- Total4.51.5 + 1.5 + 1.5 − 0 = 4.5 → Race (4.25–4.74)
Distance (10K) is a separate read on how long the lead can last. It doesn't change the score.
Distance
10K · edge: cheaper at size
Fastest-growing third-party GitHub Actions runner (Supabase, Ashby, Mercury), but it lives on GitHub's platform: GitHub cut its own runner prices up to 39% and tried a per-minute fee on outside runners, and rivals like Depot, Namespace and the clouds crowd in. Compute-heavy model and several multi-hour outages in 2026 add exposure.
Sources: TechCrunch: Blacksmith valuation jumps ~10x to $550M, crowded market (Aug 2026) ↗ · GitHub Changelog: Actions pricing update, hosted runners up to 39% cheaper (Dec 2025) ↗ · Blacksmith: The GitHub Actions control plane is no longer free (Dec 2025) ↗ · Blacksmith postmortem: control plane outage on July 21, 2026 ↗
Last checked Oct 25, 2026