BlinqIO is a company that developed the first-ever AI test engineers, addressing the severe shortage in test automation. Pulse 2.0 interviewed BlinqIO CEO and co-founder Tal Barmeir to learn more about the company.
Tal Barmeir’s Background
What is Tal Barmeir’s background? Barmeir said:
“I’ve always been passionate about software development and entrepreneurship. Having held various leadership roles in Accenture in London and Comverse, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and venture out on my own. In 2009, I was introduced to Guy Arieli, an entrepreneur who had just sold his startup, Aqua Software. Seeking a new challenge, we both met for coffee, and the rest, as they say, is history! We established Experitest, a company that provided a SaaS mobile testing platform for Enterprise applications. Throughout my time working at Experitest, I noticed there was a real need for a streamlined and innovative solution to tedious software testing and that it was something that needed to be explored further.”
Formation Of BlinqIO
How did the idea for the company come together? Barmeir shared:
“Guy came up with the idea that we can leverage GenAI to remove the bottleneck in test engineer resources. In 2023, after much research and the development of an advanced AI-powered test engineer on our side, BlinqIO was born!”
Favorite Memory
What has been Barmeir’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Barmeir reflected:
“I am always intrigued by these initial stages when you move from garage operation to company. My favorite memory is when we went together to find our first office and assembled all employees to one spot working together. In that one moment, you suddenly realize you have switched from idea to company and from people to team. That’s a truly special moment for any entrepreneur and for me in particular.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Barmeir explained:
“Our core product is an AI test engineer that receives test requirements and takes from there all the way to deliver a state-of-the-art Playwright project. As this AI test engineer is essentially a computing instance, you can trigger as many of them as you want, and they can work in parallel. All the more, this AI Test Engineer speaks 50 languages – which means that it can take as input a single test requirement, say in English, and create test automation code for any one of the multilingual languages in which the website/mobile app may be available in – Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean – you name it. This not cuts the time of the testing cycle from years to minutes, but it also enables one hundred percent coverage on multilingual websites and apps.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Barmeir and the team faced in building the company? Barmeir acknowledged:
“I think our first challenge was helping people to understand what BlinqIO does and how it’s different. Secondly, the copilot has created huge pressure on testing teams. We have seen the bottleneck in software testing multiply as huge chunks of code (much of it created by assisted AI coding tools like copilot) are pumped into the testing organization.”
Evolution Of BlinqIO’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Barmeir noted:
“As generative AI is an ever-evolving technology, I think the advances are fast and significant. Our technology has evolved through our ability to provide value by increasing the capabilities of our AI Test Engineer. Over the past twelve months and much trial and error, our generative AI open source engines are super powerful, enabling round-the-clock test automation.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Barmeir cited:
“Today, I believe we have a state-of-the-art product that is capable of covering not just any front-end technology, language and flow but is also able to generate ideas independently of what should be tested. This means we are not just in an execution mode whereby we receive instructions and perform them. We are proud to say that our AI Test Engineer has the ability to think creatively, providing ideas that are later converted into solutions.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Barmeir about customer success stories, she highlighted:
“We have a huge international bank that has been leveraging our solution to such an extent it managed to increase test automation coverage across two of its websites (supporting around ten different languages), taking it from a mere forty percent to almost ninety percent in a matter of weeks. I believe that this is an amazing achievement not only because of the end results but also because working in an enterprise environment with its security and integrations typically takes forever. Blinq has been crafted to meet these demanding and complex enterprise environments and this leading worldwide bank is a live proof it has lived up to its promise.”
Funding
When asking Barmeir about the company’s funding, she revealed:
“We have just announced a $5 million seed round with the lead investor based out of Boston as well as Inovia led by ex-Google CFO. This round was oversubscribed, demonstrating a huge interest in BlinqIO. I believe investors now realize that generative AI is an inflection point in the testing market and are now realizing its full potential.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Barmeir assessed:
“The TAM is huge and you can get a taste of it from the current professional services companies playing the market (~$25 billion annually), but also there is further market potential as many software products – often critical internal websites and apps – never get significant test automation coverage due to a major lack of resources. These domains can now enjoy this coverage via advancements in technology that GenAI brings.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Barmeir affirmed:
“Our AI-powered test engineer is capable of owning the process, often making intelligent decisions on how to handle different tasks. It “thinks” with a human-like brain. Other solutions usually tackle point issues of improving object identification or analytics of results without taking ownership of the testing process.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Barmeir concluded:
“Our aspirations span wider domains, some of which we can’t discuss in full yet. We started with software testing, which is our domain expertise but I believe our core technology can be applied to many other areas – watch this space!”
