Corgi, the buzzy Y Combinator-backed insurance tech startup, says it didn’t steal an open source product

Y Combinator-backed insurance tech startup Corgi became embroiled in yet another controversy earlier this week when Papermark, maker of open source data room software, accused Corgi of stealing its software and passing it off as its own.

Corgi denies this, telling TechCrunch, “No code was used from Papermark.”

But there were reasons why people believed the initial allegation, which was made by Papermark co-founder Marc Seitz on X , concerning Corgi’s newly released product called Dataroom.

Seitz’s post blew up because he shared screenshots showing Corgi’s product using the same language for the same features as Papermark’s, word for word. Deal room software is essentially secure document sharing. It is famously used by startups to pitch VCs and send them supporting materials for due diligence.

Seitz went as far as to call Corgi’s new product copyright and license infringing, and “fraud.”

Corgi’s co-founder and CEO Nico Laqua saw the tweet and promised to investigate. Soon after, he posted on X his full denial with receipts of his own, showing that the code was different between the two products.

While he strenuously pushed back on the allegations of a license violation (“‘stole my enterprise-code’ is a different claim than ‘copied my style,” Laqua argued), he did admit that relying on a vibe-coding design led to the replica features.

“Looking back, we should’ve leaned more into our own language and visual choices instead of taking cues from existing products in the space, and that’s on us,” he posted.

A Corgi spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the offending features were vibe-coded and said they have already been changed, downplaying the situation.

“The issues were isolated to visual elements on two peripheral settings pages,” the spokesperson told us, adding that these elements were “immediately updated” and that “our team confirmed that no code was used from Papermark.”

Laqua and the spokesperson also accused Papermark of making these accusations because Corgi is offering a less expensive product. “I get that this stings since we’re putting out something mostly free that competes with his SaaS. I’d be mad too,” Laqua wrote of Seitz. (Seitz has not yet responded to our request for comment.)

Yet, this clearly wasn’t just sour grapes when identical features and wording were used.

It’s about a new question: If vibe coding makes it so easy to copy the look, feel, and every function of another’s work, while not copying every line of the code itself, how much does it matter if the source isn’t identical?