Avrea raises USD $4.7 million to speed AI software delivery

Avrea has raised USD $4.7 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Earlybird.

The Helsinki startup also launched its AI-native continuous integration and continuous delivery platform, aimed at software teams managing rising volumes of code generated with AI tools.

Founded by Aiven co-founder Hannu Valtonen and Nosto co-founder Juha Valvanne, Avrea is entering the market with a product designed to ease pressure on testing and software delivery systems that have not kept pace with the speed at which developers and AI agents can now produce code.

Delivery pressure

That mismatch is becoming a growing problem for engineering teams because testing, validation and shipping still scale in line with output. In practice, more code often means more tests, build jobs and infrastructure use.

Teams can adopt the platform with a single line of code while keeping existing CI/CD workflows in place. The product can also be accessed directly by AI agents, allowing them to interact with software delivery processes as part of development work.

Avrea says its platform speeds up CI/CD pipelines by two to three times and can cut infrastructure costs by as much as 80%. It also includes monitoring tools designed to show the causes of flaky tests, stalled builds and resource issues.

Startup team

The founding team includes executives and staff with backgrounds at Aiven, Nosto, Spotify and Hoxhunt. More than half of the team members have previously built startups.

The new funding will be used to expand Avrea's engineering team and broaden the platform beyond CI/CD runners. The company also plans to build out more of the software delivery stack around its core product.

Security and compliance are likely to be important considerations for customers in this part of the software market. Avrea says it launched with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications.

Investors are betting that AI-assisted software development will expose weak points in older development infrastructure. As more code is written with the help of generative AI and autonomous software agents, companies handling testing and release management are drawing attention from backers looking for tools that can support that shift.

Valtonen framed the problem in terms of scale inside engineering organisations.

"AI has removed the bottleneck of writing code. But testing and delivery still scale linearly with output. If you generate five times more code, you need to run five times more tests, and the strain on CI/CD becomes impossible to ignore. Avrea removes that friction without requiring teams to change their workflows," said Hannu Valtonen, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Avrea.

Agent access

Valvanne said the rise of AI agents is changing how development systems should be designed.

"We have entered a new era where software is built and shipped in collaboration with AI. As AI agents become part of the development process, they should be able to directly interact with delivery systems. Avrea is designed for this new reality: to make shipping software feel effortless, so builders can focus on creating value instead of fighting their tools," said Juha Valvanne, Co-founder, Avrea.

Earlybird's backing also reflects confidence in the founding team, particularly Valtonen's earlier experience at Aiven, which grew into one of Europe's best-known infrastructure software companies.

"Backing Hannu a second time was an easy decision. At Aiven, he built a category-defining infrastructure company and scaled it to unicorn status. But what makes Avrea especially compelling is the opportunity: AI is driving an explosion in code, and the systems that test and ship software are quickly becoming the bottleneck. With Juha and a team deeply experienced in building for developers, Avrea is uniquely positioned to define the future of software delivery," said Paul Klemm, General Partner, Earlybird.