Indian Startup Rocket.new Secures $15M to Revolutionize AI-Powered App Development with Natural Language Prompts
An Indian AI-driven app development platform startup named Rocket.new has secured $15 million in a seed funding round, led by Salesforce Ventures. The funds will be used to compete with popular vibe-coding rivals such as Lovable, Cursor, and Bolt, allowing users to create full, production-ready apps using natural language prompts rather than just quick prototypes.
Investors Accel and Together Fund joined Salesforce Ventures in the all-equity seed round, which was raised only three months after Rocket.new’s platform launch in beta mode in June. Since its debut, the startup has amassed over 400,000 users across 180 countries, including more than 10,000 paid subscribers, and generated $4.5 million in annual recurring revenue.
The Indian startup based in Surat aims to achieve an annual revenue scale of $20–$25 million by the end of this year and $60–$70 million by June next year, as stated by co-founder and CEO Vishal Virani.
Virani teamed up with Rahul Shingala and Deepak Dhanak to launch Rocket.new, marking a shift from their earlier venture, DhiWise, which focused on developer workflows. The startup plans to establish a comprehensive agentic system that leverages AI not only for app and website development but also for competitive research and product development, potentially replacing the need for product managers.
The current model, referred to as version 0.3, has already built half a million applications, attracting users from various segments such as product managers, solopreneurs, front-end developers, and even large companies like Meta, PayPal, KPMG, PwC, and Times Internet for personal projects.
Approximately 80% of Rocket.new’s users have built what co-founder Vishal Virani calls “serious” applications rather than simple landing pages or branding sites. The platform offers a free trial capped at one million tokens, with monthly subscriptions starting at $25 for five million tokens, effectively discouraging hobbyists while maintaining a healthy gross margin of 50–55%.
Rocket.new combines large language models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google’s Gemini with its own deep learning systems, which are trained on proprietary datasets from DhiWise. The platform’s unique architecture sets it apart from competitors like Lovable, Bolt, and others. Generating the first application takes around 25 minutes, although the platform delivers a more comprehensive user experience compared to most vibe-coding tools.
With the fresh funding, Rocket.new plans to refine its go-to-market strategy, expand its presence in key markets, and accelerate work on proprietary models and research and development. The U.S. is currently the largest market for Rocket.new, contributing 26% of revenue, followed by Europe at 15–20% and India at 10%. To better serve American users, the startup is establishing a U.S. headquarters in Palo Alto.
