Supercharging Flutter Developers: Our Investment in Shorebird

Mobile development has never been faster—or more frustrating. As nearly three-quarters of the world’s smartphones run on Android, Flutter has become the go-to framework for building apps simultaneously across Android and iOS. But one step hasn’t caught up: updates. Developers still face days or weeks of delays as app store reviews slow the release of new features and bug fixes.

Shorebird fixes that. Founded by the team behind Flutter, the company is building tools that make mobile development easier, faster, and less painful. Its first product, Code Push, lets developers update apps instantly. No app store review, and no unnecessary waiting. Given the flexibility and control that it gives for the release process, it's no surprise that it quickly became popular in the Flutter community. Shorebird’s newest product, Shorebird CI, automates pre-launch testing for Flutter and Dart, the programming language powering many cross-platform apps today.

Few people know this problem or space more deeply than Eric Seidel, who has played a foundational role in modern mobile development. He co-created Flutter while at Google, led engineering for both Flutter and Dart, before that Blink, and before worked on WebKit, including the HTML parser that still runs inside nearly every device in use today. 

And he’s been focused on the same problem his entire career: how much time developers lose to clunky processes. Or as he puts it, he’s “addicted to helping the world stop writing everything twice.” That obsession now fuels Shorebird– and is changing how apps around the world are developed. Thousands of teams already use Code Push to ship faster and with more confidence.

Accel led Shorebird’s seed round because we believe this team can change how mobile development gets done. We’re excited to partner with Eric and the team as they continue to build what’s next.