GitHub has acquired Pull Panda Inc., a small startup that makes collaboration tools for software teams.

The terms of the deal, which was announced today, aren’t being disclosed. It was most likely a small transaction: Pull Panda only launched about 18 months ago and its LinkedIn page lists founder Abi Noda as the sole employee. Despite the deal’s presumably low dollar value, however, the startup represents a big pickup for GitHub.

Pull Panda is the creator of three popular tools that simplify a core aspect of development projects: code reviews. Before releasing an enhancement to production, developers will ask a colleague to take a look and see if there are any issues they might have missed. The efficiency with which teams carry out these assessments directly influences how fast a project is completed.

More than 1,000 companies rely on Pull Panda’s products to help them manage the process. Notable users include WeWork Companies Inc., Pivotal Software Inc. and Instacart Inc.

Pull Panda’s first tool, Pull Assigner, evenly distributes review requests among the members of a team so that no developers find themselves overloaded. A second app called Pull Remainders notifies users via Slack when they’re invited to go through a colleague’s code. The third and final tool, Pull Analytics, gives team leaders insight into how fast reviews are completed along with related information such as success rates.

GitHub has merged Pull Panda’s three tools into a single app that it released for free on the GitHub Marketplace today. Over time, the Microsoft Corp. subsidiary plans to integrate the products’ features directly into its code hosting platform.

Pull Panda is the third acquisition GitHub has made since being bought by the software giant last year. It previously purchased Dependabot Inc., whose namesake service alerted developers of vulnerabilities in their applications. Earlier, GitHub picked up Spectrum, a community platform for programmers and designers.  

Image: GitHub