ByteAsk Raises $1M to Build AI Agents for C and C++ Developers

IIT Delhi alumni Anirudha Kulkarni and Pratyush Saini have raised $1 million in pre-seedfunding for ByteAsk, their second AI startup after selling legal-tech venture LawSutra AI within four months of launch. The round includes backing from Y Combinator and Entrepreneur First, along with angel investors from global quantitative trading firms. ByteAsk has also joined Y Combinator’s Fall 2026 batch.

Founded in June 2026, ByteAsk is building an AI coding agent specifically for C and C++, languages that underpin systems ranging from automobiles and semiconductors to operating systems, embedded devices and high-frequency trading infrastructure. The founders argue that generic AI coding tools often struggle in these environments because developers must deal with complex build systems, large legacy codebases, hardware dependencies, debugging and strict performance requirements.

ByteAsk’s approach goes beyond simply suggesting code. Its agent works with the actual development toolchain, compiling changes and using debuggers, sanitizers and test suites to verify them before presenting the result to an engineer. That emphasis on verification reflects a lesson the founders say they carried over from LawSutra: specialised AI systems need strong context and workflows around the underlying model when mistakes are costly.

Kulkarni previously worked on low-latency C++ systems at Optiver and Quantbox Research, while Saini worked on AI infrastructure at ThirdAI and later helped build security agents atSimbianAI. Their first startup, LawSutra, attracted more than 5,000 lawyers before being acquired by legal research platform Manupatra.

The fresh capital will go toward engineering, research, GPU compute, training data and enterprise-grade security, including on-premises deployment for companies that cannot send sensitive source code outside their own systems. ByteAsk plans to initially target high-frequency trading, automotive and embedded software before expanding further. The bigger bet is that as AI coding matures, specialised agents built around reliability and verification may capture areas where general-purpose coding assistants still struggle.