Stealth Lithos names Bryan Helmkamp CEO in $5 million equity filing
The New York corporation lists two investors and Lee Edwards as a director, while leaving its product, valuation and backers undisclosed.
By Ryan Merket ยท Published
Why it matters
Helmkamp has already built and split two developer-tools businesses. Lithos gives him roughly $5 million for another technical venture whose product and backers remain hidden.
Bryan Helmkamp, the founder of developer-tools company Code Climate, is named chief executive of Lithos Computer Co. in a Form D filed with the SEC on July 21.
Lithos reported selling $4,999,999 of a planned $5,199,997 equity offering, leaving $199,998 available. The securities went to two investors, whose identities are not disclosed. Lithos claimed a Rule 506(b) exemption and reported no commissions or finder's fees.
The financing began before the filing became public. Lithos gave July 7 as the date of its first sale, placing at least two weeks between the initial transaction and the July 21 disclosure. The filing therefore documents securities already sold, while leaving the formal round label, closing date and valuation unknown.
A second founder chapter
Helmkamp has spent much of his career building tools for software engineers. A 2012 GitHub profile introduced him as "GitHub User #19" and the creator of Code Climate. Helmkamp told GitHub that he started working on Code Climate after struggling to fit static-analysis tools into his own development workflow and watching Rails applications become harder to maintain as they grew.
Code Climate developed that idea into automated code review and software engineering analytics. In 2021, Code Climate announced a $50 million Series C led by PSG, with Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, Lerer Hippeau and NextView Ventures participating. Code Climate said the round brought its total funding to $66 million and that more than 1,000 customers used its products at the time.
Helmkamp opened another chapter in November 2024, when Code Climate's Quality product spun out as Qlty Software. He moved into the CEO role at Qlty, while Josh Knowles took over Code Climate. Helmkamp's current GitHub profile still identifies him as Qlty's co-founder and CEO.
Qlty remains an active developer-tools project. Its open-source command-line tool, written primarily in Rust, supports more than 70 static-analysis tools across more than 40 languages and technologies and has about 3,100 GitHub stars. None of Lithos' filings connect the new entity to Qlty, Code Climate, code review or software development.
Lithos is therefore the first public indication that Helmkamp is leading another corporation alongside his publicly listed Qlty role. The filing does not establish whether Lithos will operate independently, eventually replace that role or house work already underway elsewhere.
The second name in the filing
Lithos also lists Lee Edwards as a director and promoter. The SEC document gives Edwards no employer or investment affiliation, and the filing does not establish whether he is a founder or investor.
A technology investor named Lee Edwards is a partner at Root Ventures, a seed fund focused on technical founders and hard technology. His public background includes engineering and leadership work at Teespring, SideTour, GrouponLive, Pivotal Labs and iRobot.
The matching name and technical background make the Root Ventures partner a plausible identification. The SEC filing alone does not confirm it, and Root Ventures cannot be counted among Lithos' two investors from the available evidence. A director or promoter can hold an operating or governance role without investing through an affiliated fund.
What the filing leaves hidden
Lithos was incorporated in Delaware in 2026 and lists a principal address at 169 Madison Avenue in New York. Lithos selected "Other Technology" as its industry category and declined to disclose revenue. The Form D contains no product description, website, customer segment, headcount or operating metrics.
The name "Lithos Computer Co." does not establish that Helmkamp is building computer hardware. The SEC form offered a specific "Computers" category, yet Lithos instead chose the broader "Other Technology" designation. Calling Lithos a hardware, AI, infrastructure or developer-tools startup would go beyond the filing.
The offering is about 96% subscribed based on the amounts Lithos reported. That level of placement, split across only two investors and carrying no sales fees, is consistent with a concentrated private financing negotiated before the filing. It does not reveal who set the terms, whether either investor led the transaction or how much ownership Helmkamp and Edwards retained.
For Helmkamp, the filing establishes a new CEO role after 15 years spent turning code-quality tooling into multiple venture-backed products. Lithos now has roughly $5 million in reported equity sales and a deliberately broad technology classification. The product behind those numbers remains concealed.