Phind
2022 - 2026, 3 years old
An AI answer engine built for developers that resolved coding questions with cited sources, later running its own large models.
Phind launched out of Y Combinator's Summer 2022 batch, founded by Michael Royzen and Justin Wei, as an answer engine for developers that pulled from documentation and code to resolve programming questions with citations, eventually training its own models. For a while it was a favorite among engineers who wanted answers without the forum archaeology. Its problem was structural: once ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google, and Claude all added capable web search, a dedicated coding answer engine had little left to defend, and traffic fell sharply. In December 2025 Phind raised about 10 million dollars led by Bessemer, and roughly six weeks later, on January 16, 2026, Royzen announced the shutdown, with user data deleted by January 30. Few deaths in the archive arrive quite so soon after a fresh check.
- Founded
- 2022-08
- Shut down
- 2026-01-16
- Funding raised
- $10M
- Years alive
- 3
- Founders
- Michael Royzen, Justin Wei
Sources
Related departures
New entries and essays by email.
Occasional dispatches when something dies. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.