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Emergent: $30M to make software a one-button skill for non-developers
Twins Mukund and Madhav Jha founded Emergent in 2025; its agentic vibe-coding platform hit $15M ARR and 1.5M apps before a $23M Lightspeed Series A.
Emergent
What the business is
A vibe-coding platform where non-developers describe an app in natural language and autonomous AI agents build, test, deploy and run the full stack — front-end, backend, logins, payments.
Starting capital：$30M total: $7M seed plus a $23M Series A led by Lightspeed
How it started
Twins Mukund Jha (ex-Google engineer and Dunzo cofounder) and Madhav Jha (ex-Amazon AI scientist) started Emergent in San Francisco in 2025, after a $7M seed with Y Combinator and Together Fund. Their framing was that AI had made coding a commodity: 'anybody with an idea and a phone' should be able to build what they want.
What happened
The platform launched in mid-2025 and grew fast: within 90 days Emergent reported $15M in annual recurring revenue, more than 1 million users and over 1.5 million apps built across 180 countries, about 20% of them in India. In September 2025 it raised a $23M Series A led by Lightspeed, with Prosus Ventures, Together Fund and Y Combinator participating alongside angels including Jeff Dean and Balaji Srinivasan, and announced expansion into MENA and Asia.
How it ended up
Still running and scaling: at the Series A announcement it reported $15M ARR within 90 days of launch and 1M+ users, and said it would use the capital to grow its AI team, deepen research and expand into MENA and Asia.
Background
Emergent is a San Francisco-founded startup from twin brothers Mukund and Madhav Jha that sells 'vibe coding': describe an app in plain language and autonomous AI agents build, test and launch it — front-end, backend, logins, payments and scaling included. Launched in 2025, it aimed at non-developers and small businesses, positioning against developer-focused tools like Replit, Lovable and Cursor.
The growth claims were the pitch: within 90 days of launch the company reported $15 million in annual recurring revenue, more than a million users and over 1.5 million apps built across 180 countries, about 20% of them in India. It monetises through subscriptions of $20 to $200 a month plus deployment fees — a deliberate bet that people will pay to own working software rather than a code prototype.
In September 2025, three months after launching, Emergent announced a $23 million Series A led by Lightspeed, with Prosus Ventures, Together Fund and Y Combinator participating alongside angels including Jeff Dean and Balaji Srinivasan, bringing total funding to $30 million. The company said it would expand into MENA and Asia, where governments are pushing digital-first economies and SMEs form the backbone of growth.
What has to be true
- The founders bet the $2 trillion software industry would expand once non-developers could build, not just developers — making the total addressable market everyone with a phone.
- They chose full-stack, launchable apps over front-end prototypes, arguing Replit and Lovable stop short of a monetisable product.
- They targeted non-developers and SMEs explicitly, with pricing ($20–$200/month subscriptions) sized for businesses rather than engineers.
- The YC and Lightspeed backing plus angels like Jeff Dean gave the founders the capital to race ahead in a crowded, fast-moving category.
What can be applied
When a platform shift makes a skilled job free, target the underserved user — non-developers — and own the full experience, because that is where the business model lives.
Aftermath
As of the September 25, 2025 Series A announcement, Emergent is live and scaling: it reports $15M ARR, more than 1 million users and 1.5 million apps built, with offices in San Francisco and Bengaluru and users in 180 countries. The company plans to use the capital to grow its AI team, deepen research into coding agents and expand into MENA and Asia, where it sees SME digital transformation as its biggest opportunity.
Sources
- Emergent raises $23 million to scale AI-powered 'vibe coding' platform
- Lightspeed, Prosus back Mukund Jha's AI startup Emergent with $23 million in Series A round
- Emergent raises US$30m and expands into MENA to accelerate Digital Transformation
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