Crash Override

Crash Override is a technology firm providing an Engineering Relationship Management (ERM) platform designed to bring clarity to complex software development environments. Founded in 2022 by cybersecurity veterans John Viega and Mark Curphey, the company was established to address the growing issue of software sprawl, a problem accelerated by the rise of AI-generated code. The founders possess deep industry experience. Viega is a recognized application security pioneer and author, with previous ventures including Capsule8 (acquired by Sophos). Curphey founded the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) in 2002 and was the founding CEO of SourceClear (acquired by Veracode). Their journey began after interviewing over 100 industry professionals, which revealed significant visibility problems for engineering and security teams.

The company's core offering is a platform that automates visibility across the entire software delivery pipeline, creating a single source of truth connecting code, cloud infrastructure, build systems, and teams. It operates within the Network Management Software industry, serving engineering, DevOps, and security teams. The business model centers on helping organizations understand their engineering ecosystems to reduce costs, mitigate risks, and improve efficiency. By embedding into the build process, the platform tracks every artifact, maintaining a catalog of infrastructure, builds, and deployments. This allows teams to quickly answer critical questions during incidents, such as what a system is, who owns it, and what has recently changed, thereby reducing downtime.

Crash Override's key product is its ERM platform, featuring a proprietary build inspection technology that automatically catalogs workloads and maintains a real-time change ledger. This provides complete traceability from the first line of code to cloud deployment. The platform addresses the common challenge of unclear code ownership without disrupting developer workflows. A significant milestone was securing a $28 million seed funding round in July 2025, led by GV (Google Ventures) and SYN Ventures, with participation from Blackstone and Bessemer Venture Partners. As part of the funding, Blackstone also contributed a codebase named Ocular to enhance the platform's analysis capabilities, particularly for AI-generated code.

Keywords: Engineering Relationship Management, ERM, software delivery pipeline, code-to-cloud visibility, DevOps intelligence, software supply chain security, application security, build inspection technology, code ownership, incident response, developer productivity, software sprawl, John Viega, Mark Curphey, GV, SYN Ventures, Blackstone, Bessemer Venture Partners, system of record for engineering, software artifact tracking