In a significant vote of confidence for the artificial intelligence-driven software development landscape, Surat-based startup Rocket.new has secured $15 million in a seed funding round co-led by global investment giants Salesforce Ventures and Accel.[1][2][3][4][5] The investment, which also saw participation from Together Fund, will fuel the AI-powered application-building platform's mission to transform how software is created, moving beyond simple code generation to the automated creation of complete, production-ready applications from natural language prompts.[1][3][5] Despite launching just four months ago, the company has demonstrated remarkable traction, attracting over 400,000 users in 180 countries who have already built more than half a million applications on the platform.[1][3][5][6] This funding injection is earmarked for aggressive expansion, including bolstering research and development, accelerating product innovation, and expanding its global footprint.[4][5][7]

The fresh capital will be instrumental in Rocket.new's strategic growth plans, which prominently feature the establishment of a North American headquarters in Palo Alto, California.[1][4][5] This move is designed to serve as a gateway to Silicon Valley's enterprise ecosystem, where the company sees immense demand for its scalable AI solutions.[1][4][6][7] In addition to its US expansion, the startup intends to double its engineering and product teams in India over the next 12 to 15 months to support its rapid growth.[1][4][5][7] Currently employing a team of around 60 people across its offices in Surat and Palo Alto, the expansion reflects the company's commitment to deepening its technical capabilities.[1][5][7] Co-founder and COO Deepak Dhanak stated that the funding will help fuel the company's vision to eliminate the technical barriers that prevent great ideas from becoming reality.[1][6][7]

At the heart of Rocket.new's innovation is a concept it calls "Vibe Solutioning," an evolution of the emerging "vibe coding" trend.[8][2] Vibe coding, a term popularized in early 2025, describes a software development practice where AI is used to generate functional code from natural language prompts, allowing developers to focus on the overall goal rather than line-by-line implementation.[9][10][11][12] Rocket.new takes this a step further by aiming to solve not just the "Day 1" problem of initial creation but also the critical "Day 2" challenges of iteration, maintenance, and deployment.[8][13] While many AI tools produce code snippets or fragile prototypes, Rocket.new's platform is engineered to generate complete, multi-page, and architecturally sound applications with integrated backends, database schemas, and authentication from a single, descriptive prompt.[1][14][15][16][6] This is powered by a sophisticated architecture that includes a multi-agent system and a significant proprietary data advantage: a unique dataset of 10 million Figma-to-code pairs from the founders' previous company, Dhiwise.[1][8]

The platform's focus on production-grade solutions has resonated powerfully within the market, leading to explosive early growth. In the 16 weeks since its beta launch, Rocket.new has not only amassed a user base of 400,000 but has also attracted over 10,000 paying subscribers, achieving an impressive $4.5 million in annual recurring revenue.[15][13][17][18][19] The company has set ambitious targets, aiming to scale revenue to between $20 million and $25 million by the end of the year.[15][18] Its user base is notably diverse, ranging from small businesses in Brazil and agencies in Dubai to teams within Fortune 100 enterprises, with the United States leading in early adoption.[1][5][6] This rapid uptake highlights a significant demand for tools that democratize software development, a key trend in a global low-code and no-code market that is experiencing accelerated growth due to AI advancements.[20][21][22]

The vision and technical acumen of the founding team—CEO Vishal Virani, Rahul Shingala, and Deepak Dhanak—were critical factors for investors.[1][8][3] Operating from the unconventional tech hub of Surat, the team's prior experience building Dhiwise provided them with deep expertise in developer workflows and a unique technological moat.[1][8] This experience informed their pivot to Rocket.new, a deliberate shift toward a fully AI-driven platform capable of delivering end-to-end applications.[1] Investors have lauded this approach. Kartik Gupta of Salesforce Ventures noted that Rocket.new is democratizing software creation and fundamentally changing the economics of building a business by shifting the focus from simply writing code faster to seamlessly translating ideas into complete solutions.[5][6] Similarly, Prayank Swaroop, a Partner at Accel, highlighted that the company is building AI tools that enterprise teams can adopt and deploy quickly and without friction.[6]

In conclusion, Rocket.new's successful $15 million seed funding round marks a pivotal moment for the Indian startup and the broader AI-powered software development industry. The investment from Salesforce Ventures and Accel validates the company's innovative "Vibe Solutioning" approach and its remarkable early success in a competitive market. By focusing on creating robust, production-ready applications rather than disposable prototypes, the company is addressing a critical gap between idea and execution. As Rocket.new embarks on its global expansion, its trajectory will be a key indicator of the power of AI to fundamentally reshape software creation, making it more accessible, efficient, and aligned with the natural process of human imagination.[1][6][23] The startup's journey from Surat to Silicon Valley also underscores the increasing global investor interest in Indian technology companies building for a worldwide audience.[6]