Grammarly acquires productivity startup Coda, brings on new CEO

Grammarly is acquiring productivity startup Coda, the company announced on Tuesday. As part of the deal, Coda’s CEO and co-founder Shishir Mehrotra will become the new CEO of Grammarly.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition will help turn Grammarly’s AI assistant into an “AI productivity platform” thanks to the addition of Coda’s AI tools and products, the company says. The deal will give Grammarly customers access to new features, such as generative AI chat and a productivity suite, to help them work more efficiently.

Grammarly’s current CEO, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, said in a statement that he is stepping down from his role and that he will work alongside Mehrotra as an adviser. 

Mehrotra, a 25-year tech veteran who previously served as YouTube’s chief product officer and chief technology officer, outlined his vision for Grammarly in a blog post: to make the AI assistant even smarter and more helpful.

“Imagine if the Assistant not only gave amazing suggestions and refinements based on the writing it sees today but also had permission-aware connections into all of your other systems (from your email to docs to CRM to project trackers and more),” Mehrotra wrote.

In addition, Coda’s core product, Coda Docs, will be upgraded with the Grammarly Assistant.

“In the longer term, we plan to weave the best of Coda and Grammarly together,” Mehrotra wrote. “It will combine your company knowledge, generative AI chat features, a full productivity suite, and hundreds of agents to help you work smarter. We aim to redefine productivity for the AI era.”

Founded in 2009, Grammarly has 40 million active users and is valued at $13 billion. Coda was valued at $1.4 billion following its Series D raise back in 2021.

As AI assistants become more and more accessible, Grammarly’s acquisition of Coda will help it become better positioned to compete with companies building AI tools for writing and productivity.