The way people discover and use software is changing as AI coding agents take on tasks traditionally handled by developers.
San Francisco-based startup Lightsage announced a $4 million funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners to develop what it calls “Agent-Led Growth,” or ALG. The round also includes executives and operators from the developer tools and AI industries.
Investors include former Salesforce CTO Steven Tamm, Postman CEO Abhinav Asthana, Apollo CEO Matt Curl, DocuSign President and GM of Growth Robert Chatwani, former GitLab Head of Growth Hila, Resend CEO Zeno, Firecrawl co-founder Eric, Daytona CEO Ivan, Tinyfish COO Shuhao and Adam Frankl, according to the company.
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Software companies have traditionally relied on websites, search, product demonstrations and sign-ups to attract and convert users. AI agents are changing that process. A coding agent can select a database, API, authentication provider or developer tool and begin integrating it without necessarily visiting the company’s website.
For a product to be selected and used successfully, an AI agent needs to be able to find relevant information, understand documentation, choose the appropriate SDK or API, authenticate and complete the required task.
“We are moving from an internet where AI tells people which software to use to one where AI increasingly uses the software itself,” Jun Liang Lee, CEO and co-founder of Lightsage, said in a statement.
“That changes what growth means. Visibility still matters, but the real test is whether an agent can understand your product and get to a successful outcome,” he added.
Lightsage’s platform runs simulations across answer engines and coding agents to assess how products appear in AI-generated recommendations and how agents interact with them afterward.
The simulations involve tasks that require agents to navigate documentation and use APIs, SDKs, command-line interfaces, MCP servers and agent skills. When an agent fails to complete a task, the platform identifies potential problems, which can include discoverability, documentation, authentication, API endpoints, SDK implementations or MCP compatibility.
Companies can then make changes and rerun the workflows to assess whether the agent can complete the task successfully.
The platform also tracks real agent traffic to company websites and documentation, including what agents interact with and whether those interactions lead to product usage, according to Lightsage.
Lightsage currently supports coding agents including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode.
The company is initially focusing on developer software. Lightsage said customers including Firecrawl, Reducto, Daytona, Rime and Tinyfish use its platform to examine how AI agents select products, where integrations fail and how changes to documentation or products affect those workflows.
In one example cited by the company, a coding agent repeatedly recommends a competitor. Lightsage can recreate the same task across different products and agents to determine whether the difference is related to product visibility, documentation or the user experience.
The shift also presents challenges for traditional software analytics. Companies can typically track human users through searches, website visits, clicks, registrations and conversions. AI agents may discover, evaluate and use a product without following the same sequence.
Their behavior can also differ across AI systems. A workflow that succeeds with one coding agent may fail with another, while changes to models and interfaces can affect how agents interact with software.
Lightsage refers to this area as “Agent Experience,” which focuses on how easily AI agents can understand and use a product. The company draws a comparison with Developer Experience, which became an important consideration for software companies targeting human developers.
“The internet brought the economy online, with humans discovering, choosing and transacting through digital channels,” Abhishek Sharma, partner at Nexus Venture Partners, said in a statement.
“AI is now shifting that agency from humans to agents, which can discover, evaluate and act on a customer’s behalf,” he said.
Lightsage plans to use the funding to expand its agent evaluation, analytics, attribution and optimization capabilities across APIs, SDKs, CLIs, MCP servers and agent skills.
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The company said it eventually plans to expand beyond developer tools into areas including B2B software, infrastructure and payments as AI agents take on more tasks on behalf of users.
Founded by Lee and CTO Sean Er, Lightsage focuses on tracking how AI agents discover, evaluate and interact with software. Its platform covers agent discovery across coding agents and answer engines, agent experience evaluations and analytics on where agents interact with products and where those workflows fail.
The funding comes as software companies face a shift in how users may discover and adopt their products, with AI agents increasingly becoming part of the process between finding a tool and actually using it.