Rocket.new, an Indian startup specializing in an AI-powered app development platform, has successfully raised $15 million in a seed funding round. Salesforce Ventures led the investment, with participation from Accel and Together Fund. The all-equity round occurred three months after the platform's beta launch in June.
The funding aims to support Rocket.new's platform, which enables users to build production-ready applications from natural-language prompts. This approach positions the company to compete in the "vibe-coding" market against existing platforms such as Lovable, Cursor, and Bolt, by focusing on comprehensive app generation rather than rapid prototyping.
Since its beta debut, Rocket.new has accumulated over 400,000 users across 180 countries, including more than 10,000 paid subscribers. The company has reported achieving $4.5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Co-founder and CEO Vishal Virani indicated in an interview that the startup targets scaling ARR to $20–$25 million by the end of the year and $60–$70 million by June of next year.
Based in Surat, India, Rocket.new was founded by Vishal Virani, Rahul Shingala, and Deepak Dhanak. The venture represents a pivot from their prior company, DhiWise, which focused on developer workflows. Virani stated that Rocket.new is developing a "comprehensive agentic system" designed not only for app and website creation but also for competitive research and product development, potentially streamlining the need for product managers.
The platform's current model, version 0.3, has reportedly facilitated the creation of half a million applications. Its user base includes product managers, solopreneurs, and front-end developers, with individuals from companies such as Meta, PayPal, KPMG, PwC, and Times Internet utilizing the platform for personal projects. Approximately 80% of applications built are characterized as "serious" applications, with 12% being e-commerce platforms, 10% fintech apps, and B2B and mental health apps accounting for 5–6% and 4–5%, respectively.
Rocket.new reports that 45% of its users are developing mobile apps, while 55% are building websites. The platform integrates large language models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google's Gemini with its proprietary deep learning systems, which are trained on datasets from DhiWise. According to Virani, the underlying architecture distinguishes Rocket.new from its competitors. While initial application generation takes approximately 25 minutes, longer than some rival tools, early assessments suggest a more comprehensive user experience with essential modules included.
The platform operates on a tiered subscription model, offering a free trial up to one million tokens, followed by a monthly subscription starting at $25 for five million tokens. This model has contributed to a reported gross margin of 50–55%, with an objective to increase it to 60–70% within months. The United States accounts for 26% of Rocket.new's revenue, followed by Europe at 15–20% and India at 10%. To support its U.S. market, the company is establishing a headquarters in Palo Alto.
The seed funding will be allocated to refining its go-to-market strategy, expanding its presence in key markets, and accelerating proprietary model development and R&D. Kartik Gupta, Investor at Salesforce Ventures, remarked via email that Rocket.new addresses a gap in the market by enabling AI-generated code to become "production-ready" for "iteration, maintenance, and deployment at enterprise scale." Rocket.new currently employs 58 staff, primarily in Surat, and plans to double its engineering and product team in India over the next 12 months.
