Source: Elastic agrees to buy CRV-backed DeductiveAI for up to $85M

DeductiveAI, a startup that uses AI to catch and resolve bugs in software, has agreed to be sold to enterprise software company Elastic for up to $85 million, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. Deductive, which was founded in 2023, came out stealth last November when it announced a $7.5 million seed round led by CRV with participation from Databricks Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, and PrimeSet. The investment valued the startup at $33 million, according to PitchBook. Elastic and Deductive did not respond to multiple requests for comment. TechCrunch will update this article if either company responds. The sale marks a speedy exit for Deductive, which is operating in a fast-growing sector known as AI site reliability engineering (AI SRE). Building AI-powered SRE tools has become an important area, driven by the massive influx of AI-written code. Replacing manual debugging with AI enables human SREs to shift focus from constantly fixing outages and other problems, to spending more time on helping with product development. The acquisition reflects a broader trend in which established tech incumbents are looking to buy AI-native startups to integrate agentic technologies into their existing product suites, the source told TechCrunch. Elastic, which went public in 2018, is best known for Elasticsearch, the search and analytics engine that helps organizations store, search, analyze, and monitor large amounts of data in near real time. …