Ten years after selling Periscope to Twitter, startup's co-founder raises $40 million for Macroscope

A decade has passed since Kayvon Beykpour sold the live streaming platform Periscope to Twitter, which acquired it for approximately $100 million. This acquisition allowed Twitter to enhance its live-streaming capabilities, although the platform was ultimately discontinued in 2021. Under the ownership of Elon Musk, Twitter has since shifted its focus to a new live events product called Spaces. Now, Beykpour is embarking on a new journey with his latest startup, Macroscope. On Wednesday, he announced that he has successfully raised $40 million from a group of venture capital firms, including GV (previously Google Ventures), Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive Capital. Unlike Periscope, which catered to consumers, Macroscope is aimed directly at businesses. The core mission of Macroscope is to enhance transparency within the software development process. Beykpour aims to assist software developers in identifying bugs in their code while also providing managers with insights into their teams' activities. Reflecting on his experience at Twitter, he noted the challenges posed by a lack of visibility in the workflow: "So much of my job as the head of product at Twitter was just understanding what the hell was happening." To facilitate this transparency, Macroscope integrates with GitHub's source code repositories and project management tools from Atlassian and Linear. The platform also leverages AI models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI, enabling it to suggest alternative coding solutions and address queries from developers and product leaders. Beykpour revealed that in tests, Macroscope has outperformed its competitors in accurately identifying known software bugs. He highlighted a significant gap in tools available for managers to monitor developer activity, stating, "They're solving it with meetings. If we cannot surpass the bar of, people call a meeting to ask a bunch of engineers what's happening, we've failed miserably." Macroscope is priced at $30 per developer each month, which includes features for management oversight, while a competing service, Cursor, is available for $32 per month with an annual subscription. Early adopters of Macroscope include notable companies such as film studio A24, online education platform Class, and probiotics firm Seed Health. Founded in 2023, Macroscope consists of a team of 17 employees and is headquartered in San Francisco.