Vibe-Coding Startup Anything Hits $100M Valuation After $2M ARR Launch

The world of vibe coding, where developers use AI tools to build applications through simple language prompts, is experiencing explosive growth. Companies in this space are achieving staggering revenue figures in remarkably short timeframes. Swedish startup Lovable, for instance, reached an impressive $100 million in annual recurring revenue only eight months after its debut. It now projects hitting $250 million by year’s end and expects to achieve a $1 billion ARR within the next twelve months. Similarly, Replit recently announced its own surge, climbing from $2.8 million to $150 million in ARR in under a year.

This rapid expansion has ignited a wave of new competitors, all gaining momentum at a breathtaking pace. Nikhil Basu Trivedi, a co-founder and general partner at the venture capital firm Footwork, observes, “This is one of those spaces where every company is growing like a weed.” However, he points out a critical weakness common to Lovable, Replit, and other similar platforms. While they are excellent for creating prototypes, they often fall short when it comes to helping users launch fully functional, production-ready software.

According to Basu Trivedi, the core issue is that most vibe-coding companies fail to supply the complete infrastructure required by non-technical users to deploy a working product. A new player named Anything is tackling this exact problem head-on. Launched just a month ago, Anything provides an all-in-one toolkit, including databases, storage, and payment systems, enabling users to operate web-based businesses or publish their AI-generated apps directly to the App Store. The startup’s initial performance has been dramatic, hitting a $2 million annualized run rate in a mere two weeks.

Despite the crowded market, Anything’s explosive growth was so compelling that Basu Trivedi felt compelled to invest. On Monday, the company announced it secured an $11 million funding round, achieving a $100 million valuation. The round was led by Footwork, with participation from Uncork, Bessemer, and M13.

Anything was co-founded by former Google colleagues Dhruv Amin and Marcus Lowe, with a specific mission to empower non-technical individuals to create comprehensive web and mobile applications. Amin commented on the limitations of existing tools, stating, “You haven’t really seen real businesses built on top of any of these tools. We want to be the Shopify of the space, where people build apps that make money on top of us.”

Amin reports that users have already successfully built and published fully functional applications using Anything. These include a habit tracker, a CPR training course, and a virtual hairstyle “try-on” app, some of which are already generating revenue. The key advantage, Amin explains, is that users can complete their apps without the hassle of configuring and integrating separate essential tools with their initial prototype.

The concept for an all-encompassing, AI-assisted app builder emerged for Amin and Lowe less than a year ago. The duo, who have collaborated since 2021, previously ran a bootstrapped development marketplace that combined AI coding tools with human developers. That venture, which predated the rise of large language models, was generating around $2 million in annualized revenue. However, they recognized that generative AI would soon be capable of delivering applications more quickly and affordably than their marketplace model allowed.

Consequently, in 2023, they shut down that business to focus entirely on developing an AI-powered app-building tool. They secured pre-seed and seed funding from Uncork and Bessemer Venture Partners during this transition. Amin and Lowe observed that competing platforms like Lovable and StackBlitz’s Bolt often depend on third-party services such as Supabase for their database needs. They believed they could set Anything apart by constructing the entire infrastructure stack internally.

This in-house development approach was time-consuming, but it could prove to be a crucial differentiator. Anything is not alone in believing that providing a full suite of back-end tools is a powerful growth strategy. Other startups, including Mocha and Rork, are also building significant portions of their own infrastructure. Rork, for example, claims it is on pace to reach $10 million in ARR by the end of the year.

The fierce competition, however, does not concern Basu Trivedi. He remains optimistic about the market’s capacity, noting, “It seems there’s enough demand out there for different types of app-building products.”

(Source: TechCrunch)