(Bloomberg) -- Grammarly Inc., the maker of AI-powered writing assistance software, added new chief technology and financial officers, bolstering its management ahead of a potential initial public offering down the road.
Mark Schaaf, the former technology chief of Instacart, will be taking that role at Grammarly, the company said Tuesday. The CFO job will go to Navam Welihinda, who oversaw finances at HashiCorp Inc. Both new executives helped their previous companies get through the IPO process, according to Grammarly.
The moves follow the elevation of Rahul Roy-Chowdhury to the chief executive officer role last year. In an interview, he said the latest changes are part of an effort to “embrace the opportunity” of artificial intelligence. Though he downplayed the idea of an imminent IPO — and hasn’t hired bankers or advisers — Roy-Chowdhury wants to ensure that he’s “ready to do what’s right for the company.”
“I’ve been thinking about AI for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Roy-Chowdhury, who previously served as Grammarly’s product chief.
Earlier this year, the CEO shook up the business to focus more tightly on AI. That included laying off about 230 people. The company is valued at $13 billion, Roy-Chowdhury said this week. In addition to its San Francisco headquarters, Grammarly has offices in Ukraine and other locations in North America and Europe.
Grammarly helps people write more clearly and provides editing tools across multiple platforms. It’s facing a more crowded market, with Apple Inc. and others integrating similar features into their operating systems. But Roy-Chowdhury said that his company has 30 million users and the competition has only spurred Grammarly to move faster.
Schaaf departed Instacart in 2022 and then served as chief operating officer of Retool, a business software startup, for about a year. Welihinda left HashiCorp this month and earlier worked in finance at International Business Machines Corp.
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