A London and Los Angeles-headquartered tech company founded by serial entrepreneur Sachin Dev Duggal has closed one of Europe’s largest series A funding rounds.
Engineer.ai, which describes itself as the “human-assisted AI” that empowers everyone to build and operate bespoke software, raised $29.5 million from venture capital firms Lakestar and Jungle Ventures, and Softbank’s DeepCore.
The company has been bootstrapped since its inception in 2012 and now generates $24 million in revenue and operates from offices in Los Angeles, London, Delhi and Tokyo.
“We created Engineer.ai so that everyone can build an idea without learning to code,” said founder and ‘chief wizard’ Sachin Dev Duggal, who has previously worked as CEO of SMX corporation, consultant and adviser with Deutsche Bank and founder and chief wizard of Nivio.
“This investment round validates our approach of making bespoke software effortless. The capital comes at a time of rapid growth and will propel the platform into the mainstream, allowing Builder to open the door for entire categories of companies that could not consider it before.”
Launched in January 2018, Engineer.ai has already attracted clients including the BBC, Virgin and Manscore and is targeting annual revenue of $100 million by 2020.
The firm’s Builder tool is described as an AI-powered software assembly line that breaks projects into small building blocks of re-usable features.
In simple terms, the company says it delivers high quality bespoke software at “a fraction of the price and time of traditional development”.
Manu Gupta, partner at Lakestar, said the market has been “waiting for a solution” that knocks down technical barriers to building software.
“By creating an AI powered assembly line combined with the best global human talent, Engineer.ai’s Builder bridges the gap between an idea and a software product to enable it,” he said.