Lovable says it’s nearing 8 million users as the year-old AI coding startup eyes more corporate employees

Lovable, the Stockholm-based AI coding platform, is closing in on 8 million customers, CEO Anton Osika informed this editor throughout a sit-down on Monday, a significant soar from the 2.3 million energetic customers quantity the corporate shared in July. Osika mentioned the corporate — which was based nearly precisely one yr in the past — can also be seeing “100,000 new merchandise constructed on Lovable each single day.”

The metrics counsel fast development of the startup, which has raised $228 million in complete funding thus far, together with a $200 million spherical this summer time that valued the corporate at $1.8 billion. Rumors have swirled in current weeks — probably sparked by its personal traders — that new backers need to make investments at a $5 billion valuation, although Osika mentioned the corporate isn’t capital constrained and declined to debate fundraising plans.

Chatting with me on stage on the Internet Summit occasion in Lisbon, Osika notably didn’t share one other quantity: Lovable’s present annual recurring income. The corporate hit $100 million in ARR this June, a milestone it trumpeted publicly. However questions have emerged since about whether or not the vibe coding increase is sustainable.

Research from Barclays this summer time, together with Google Developments knowledge, confirmed that visitors to a number of the buzziest providers, together with Lovable and Vercel’s v0, had declined after peaking earlier this yr. (Visitors to Lovable was down 40% as of September, in response to the Barclays analysts.) “This waning visitors begs the query on whether or not app/website vibecoding has peaked out already or has simply had a little bit of a lull earlier than curiosity ramps up,” they reportedly wrote in a observe to traders.

Nonetheless, Osika insisted retention stays robust, citing greater than 100% web greenback retention — which means customers’ spend extra over time. He additionally mentioned the corporate has “simply handed” the 100-employee mark and is now importing management expertise from San Francisco to bolster its Stockholm headquarters.

Lovable emerged from GPT Engineer, an open-source device Osika constructed that went viral amongst builders. However he says he shortly realized the larger alternative lay with the 99% of people that don’t know easy methods to code. “I wakened just a few days after constructing GPT Engineer and I noticed, look, we’re going to reimagine the way you construct software program,” Osika mentioned. “I biked to my co-founder’s place, and I mentioned, I’ve this nice thought. I woke him up.”

The platform has attracted an eclectic person base. Greater than half of Fortune 500 corporations are utilizing Lovable to “supercharge creativity,” in response to Osika. On the identical time, he mentioned, an 11-year-old in Lisbon constructed a Fb clone for his faculty, whereas a Swedish duo is making $700,000 yearly from a startup they launched seven months in the past on the platform.

“What I hear from folks making an attempt Lovable is, ‘It simply works,’” Osika mentioned, crediting what he described as Swedish design sensibility.

Safety stays a thornier difficulty for the vibe coding sector. Once I raised a current incident through which an app constructed with vibe coding instruments leaked 72,000 photos into the wild, together with GPS knowledge and person IDs, Osika acknowledged the issue.

“The a part of the engineering group the place we’re transferring the quickest on hiring is safety engineers,” he mentioned, including that his aim is to make constructing with Lovable “safer than constructing with simply human-written code.” The truth is, he mentioned, earlier than customers can deploy, Lovable now runs a number of safety checks, although the platform nonetheless requires customers constructing delicate functions — banking apps, as an illustration — to rent safety specialists, simply as they might with conventional growth.

Osika was equally matter-of-fact once I requested about competitors from OpenAI and Anthropic, the AI giants whose fashions energy Lovable however which have additionally launched their very own coding brokers. He sees the market as large enough for a number of winners. “If we will unlock extra human creativity and human company . . . and simply driving the change in order that anybody can create if they’ve good concepts, [and] construct companies on prime of that, that ought to be celebrated, no matter whoever does that.”

It’s a decidedly collegial stance in an business not recognized for it. (Even Osika has engaged in some mild social media sparring with Amjad Masad of competitor Replit.) However he mentioned his focus proper now’s on constructing “essentially the most intuitive expertise for people” somewhat than obsessing over rivals.

Osika described Lovable’s mission as constructing “the final piece of software program” — a platform the place every thing a product group wants, from understanding customers to deploying mission-critical options, might be performed via a easy interface.

“Demo, don’t memo,” a well-liked phrase amongst product leaders, captures how corporations now use Lovable, he mentioned. Staff can now shortly prototype concepts somewhat than writing lengthy displays, then check them with early customers earlier than committing assets.

For all of the hypergrowth and investor consideration, Osika — dressed merely in a beige T-shirt and matching button-down, floppy hair framing his face — appeared very a lot comfortable. The 30-something former particle physicist, who was the primary worker at Sauna Labs earlier than founding Lovable, has gone from open-source developer to venture-backed founder to must-have convention visitor in fast succession. But he appeared extra inquisitive about discussing European work tradition than dwelling on his firm’s trajectory or the eye all of the sudden being showered on him.

“What I care about is that everybody who’s on the firm, they’re mission pushed, they actually care about what they’re doing and the way we as a staff succeed,” he mentioned, pushing again in opposition to Silicon Valley’s intensifying hustle tradition. “The most effective folks in my staff at present, most of them, they’ve youngsters, they usually actually, actually care about what we’re doing. They’re not working 12 hours, six days every week.”

Although he added: “Though it’s a startup, so that they’re most likely working greater than most jobs.”