Amazon has successfully acquired Fig, a startup that emerged from Y Combinator (YC) and had been focused on enhancing the capabilities of command line terminals. In a recent blog post, Fig’s CEO and co-founder, Brendan Falk, revealed that Amazon had purchased Fig’s technology. As part of the acquisition, Fig’s team members, including its two co-founders, will be joining Amazon’s cloud division, AWS. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Established in 2020 in San Francisco, Fig had secured slightly over $2 million in funding. This suggests that Amazon’s investment in the startup was likely reasonable. Noteworthy supporters of Fig include YC, General Catalyst, Olivier Pomel (CEO of Datadog), Kevin Hartz (founder of Eventbrite), and Jason Warner (former CTO of GitHub).
Fig specializes in providing tools like “autocomplete,” a feature that offers tailored suggestions and explanations for the next actions developers might take while entering commands. This streamlines the process, saving time and minimizing repetitive keystrokes.
Despite the prevalence of graphical user interfaces (GUI), command line interfaces (CLI) remain a favored means of interaction for developers who prefer text-based commands to communicate with their operating systems. CLI can be more flexible and faster (for those familiar with the commands), and it also consumes fewer system resources. Fig’s focus has been on catering to this market, bringing features reminiscent of integrated development environments (IDE) into the realm of CLI.
Fig’s offerings include a free basic tier designed for individuals and small teams, along with paid plans featuring premium features tailored for larger enterprises. However, Fig has declared that, due to the acquisition, all paid features will become free for existing users.
So, why would Amazon be interested in acquiring Fig? According to Falk, the objective is to merge their expertise in order to enhance the developer experience. Specifically, Amazon seems to be intrigued by the emerging trend of generative AI. Fig’s functionality aligns with this trend by offering valuable suggestions to reduce developers’ manual labor. This resembles tools like GitHub’s Copilot, Google’s similar offering, and Facebook’s internal tool. While Fig hasn’t reached the scale of Copilot, AWS has demonstrated its interest in generative AI by launching CodeWhisperer, an AI pair-programmer. Acquiring Fig contributes to AWS’s effort to stay competitive in this evolving space.
Notably, Fig already boasts a substantial user base, including prominent organizations such as Google, Microsoft, and even Amazon itself. This suggests that Amazon’s own engineers may have championed Fig’s capabilities, potentially prompting the acquisition.
For now, Fig’s existing users will continue to access and receive support for the tool. However, new sign-ups are temporarily suspended as Amazon integrates Fig with AWS. The long-term impact on developers and engineers working with other cloud providers remains uncertain.
Amazon’s perspective on this acquisition and its implications is currently sought for clarification. Further updates will be provided when available.
