Emergent’s coding platform reached a $1.5bn valuation in the year after launch. Its founder says that most businesses don’t need software, they need a way to change how they work.
“Most businesses don’t need software. They need a way to transform the way they work into software.” That’s how Mkund Jha started as he announced that he had become a $1.5bn unicorn.
Upstart, the vibe coding platform Jha runs with his twin brother Madhav, has raised a $130m Series C round. The round is valued at $1.5bn, almost five times its valuation in January. That makes Emergent a unicorn about a year after its 2025 launch.
Creaegis, a private equity firm, led the round. Claypond Capital and Sentinel Global are co-led. Previous backers Khosla Ventures, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed, and Y Combinator are back. Total funding now stands at $230m.
Engineering team in the box
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Emergent allows people to build full software by typing simple language commands. Independent AI agents write the code, then handle hosting, testing, and deployment. Jha says 70% of its users have never coded.
“You basically get a team of engineers in a box,” he told TechCrunch. The company says more than 12 million apps are built on the platform annually. Jha puts annual revenue at $120m, with 200,000 paying customers.
These are not just websites. Users create CRMs, inventory systems, and marketplaces. Jha points to an Ohio roofer who replaced five tools with one system, and a Florida auto detailer who rebuilt his property in four days. Software that once cost six figures, he says, now costs several thousand dollars.
It’s a crowded, expensive race
Emergent is chasing the same wave as some of the most important startups in technology. Lovable is reportedly seeking a $13.2bn valuation. Anysphere’s Cursor was bought by SpaceX for $60bn in June. That boom also flooded the app stores with an abundance of AI-powered apps.
Against those numbers, $1.5bn looks modest. Emergent’s bet is a different customer. It targets small businesses and solo inventors, not professional developers who rely on Replit and Cursor. Jha calls Replit his closest rival.
He is not shy about boundaries. He admits that the design is a weakness, noting that many AI-generated environments look the same. He says success rates are still lower than he wants them to be.
What does Emergent do with the money
Most of the money will go towards recruitment and research. Emergent seeks to raise success rates and support complex applications, including those that operate on open source models. It has a European office weight and is expanding in San Francisco.
Jha’s ambition is bigger than an app builder. He wants Emergent to be an “enterprise app,” and is putting $200,000 into two developer competitions to attract more people. If the software itself is solved, he told Business Insider, developers will simply move on to harder problems, from quantum computing to drug discovery.
