Emergent’s $70M Funding Triples Valuation to $300M
▼ Summary
– Emergent, an Indian AI “vibe-coding” startup, raised a $70 million Series B round led by SoftBank and Khosla Ventures, valuing it at $300 million just months after a $23 million Series A.
– The startup has now raised $100 million total within seven months of launch and claims $50 million in annual recurring revenue with over 5 million users globally.
– Emergent’s platform uses AI agents to help entrepreneurs and small businesses design, build, test, and deploy full-stack web and mobile apps without large engineering teams.
– The funding round marks SoftBank’s return to investing in India and the capital will be used for team expansion, product development, and deepening market presence.
– Emergent is headquartered in San Francisco but operates primarily from Bengaluru, India, and competes with other fast-growing AI-assisted coding platforms like Lovable and Replit.
The rapid growth of AI-powered development platforms is vividly illustrated by Emergent, an Indian-founded startup that has secured a substantial $70 million in Series B funding. This latest investment round, which triples the company’s valuation to $300 million, arrives just months after a previous $23 million raise. The round was co-led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and Khosla Ventures, signaling strong institutional confidence. Other participants included Prosus, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Together, and Y Combinator, bringing the company’s total funding to $100 million in under seven months since its public launch.
Emergent operates in the competitive “vibe-coding” space, where AI agents assist users in designing, building, testing, and deploying full-stack web and mobile applications. Its primary audience consists of entrepreneurs and small businesses aiming to launch products without assembling large, expensive engineering teams. The platform claims impressive traction, reporting $50 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and a user base exceeding 5 million across more than 190 countries. Company leadership has set an ambitious target of surpassing $100 million in ARR by April 2026.
Founder Mukund Jha highlighted sustained demand in core markets like the United States, Europe, and India. He noted that a recently introduced mobile app-building service is gaining significant momentum. Although Emergent is officially headquartered in San Francisco, the vast majority of its 75-person team operates from an office in Bengaluru. The startup is currently engaged in aggressive hiring across various functions in both countries to support its expansion.
The market for AI-assisted coding tools has exploded, with platforms like Lovable, Cursor, and Replit growing into substantial businesses in a short timeframe. These tools lower the barrier to entry for software development, allowing users with minimal programming knowledge to create applications. Emergent’s successful funding underscores investor enthusiasm for this sector. In a similar vein, Accel, Together Fund, and Salesforce Ventures backed another India-founded startup, Rocket, with a $15 million seed round last year.
This deal also marks a notable return for SoftBank to the Indian investment landscape, its first significant move since backing commerce startup ElasticRun nearly four years ago. Emergent plans to allocate the new capital toward team expansion, accelerated product development, and deepening its market penetration in its key geographic regions.
(Source: TechCrunch)
