Rocket.new, an innovative Indian company at the forefront of AI-powered application development, has recently concluded a significant seed funding round, securing $15 million. This investment, led by prominent firms Salesforce Ventures, Accel, and Together Fund, highlights the rapid ascent of the startup, which has achieved remarkable growth in user base and revenue within a mere three months of its public beta release. The company's unique approach to 'vibe-coding' promises a new era in software creation, moving beyond simple prototypes to deliver fully functional, production-ready applications.
India's Rocket.new Secures $15 Million Investment to Revolutionize App Development with AI
In a groundbreaking development on September 22, 2025, Rocket.new, an Indian startup, announced the successful closure of a $15 million seed funding round. The investment was spearheaded by Salesforce Ventures, with notable participation from Accel and Together Fund. This substantial capital infusion arrives swiftly after the company's beta platform launch in June, underscoring investor confidence in its innovative approach to AI-driven app development.
Rocket.new, co-founded by Deepak Dhanak, Vishal Virani, and Rahul Shingala, and headquartered in Surat, India, aims to distinguish itself from existing 'vibe-coding' solutions such as Lovable, Cursor, and Bolt. While these competitors primarily focus on generating quick prototypes, Rocket.new is dedicated to enabling users to construct comprehensive, production-ready applications through intuitive natural language prompts. This strategic focus addresses a critical gap between conceptual AI-generated code and its real-world application in enterprise environments.
The platform has experienced explosive growth since its debut, attracting over 400,000 users globally, including more than 10,000 paid subscribers. This rapid adoption has translated into an impressive annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $4.5 million, with ambitious projections to reach $20–$25 million by the end of the year and $60–$70 million by June of the following year. Vishal Virani, the CEO, revealed in an exclusive interview that approximately 80% of the applications developed on Rocket.new are classified as 'serious' applications, ranging from e-commerce and fintech solutions to B2B tools and mental health support apps. Notably, prominent companies like Meta, PayPal, KPMG, PwC, and Times Internet utilize the platform for internal projects.
Rocket.new leverages a sophisticated architecture that integrates large language models from industry leaders such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google's Gemini, combined with its proprietary deep learning systems. These internal systems are continuously refined using exclusive datasets inherited from the founders' previous venture, DhiWise, which focused on developer workflows. This unique blend allows Rocket.new to offer a more robust and comprehensive user experience, despite a slightly longer initial application generation time compared to some rivals.
The company operates on a token-based subscription model, offering a free trial before transitioning to paid plans starting at $25 per month for five million tokens. This pricing strategy not only ensures a healthy gross margin of 50–55% but also targets serious developers and enterprises, effectively filtering out hobbyist users. The United States currently represents the largest market, contributing 26% of revenue, followed by Europe with 15–20%, and India at 10%. To bolster its presence in the U.S., Rocket.new plans to establish a headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
With the new funding, the company intends to refine its market strategy, expand its global footprint, and intensify research and development efforts on its proprietary models. Kartik Gupta, an investor at Salesforce Ventures, emphasized the startup's potential to bridge the gap between AI code generation and the demands of enterprise-scale deployment, highlighting Rocket.new's capability to handle the iteration, maintenance, and deployment aspects of complex applications.
The 58-member team, predominantly based in Surat, is poised for significant expansion, with plans to double its engineering and product staff in India over the next year to support the projected growth and continuous innovation.
The emergence of Rocket.new signals a pivotal shift in the landscape of software development, where AI transitions from a tool for simple automation to a comprehensive agentic system capable of orchestrating entire product lifecycles. This development underscores the increasing sophistication of AI in democratizing technology creation, empowering a broader range of individuals and organizations to build complex applications without extensive traditional coding expertise. It challenges existing paradigms and offers a glimpse into a future where intuitive, natural language interfaces could unlock unprecedented innovation and efficiency in software engineering. The rapid success of Rocket.new also serves as an inspiring example of how startups from non-traditional tech hubs can achieve global recognition and significant funding by addressing real-world problems with cutting-edge technological solutions.
