The Rise of Vibe Coding: Indian Startups Challenge the Global SaaS Status Quo
What is the news?
Software development is entering a “post-code” era, and Indian startups are at the epicenter of this shift. The term “vibe coding”—referring to the use of natural language and generative AI to create software—is being transformed from a catchy phrase into a massive commercial reality by a new crop of Indian ventures. Startups like Emergent, Rocket, and Composio are building the infrastructure that allows anyone to go from an idea to a production-ready application simply by describing it.
Why is it interesting?
The numbers tell a story of rapid global adoption. Emergent, a Bengaluru and San Francisco-based platform led by Mukund Jha, has already scaled to an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $10 million, with nearly a million apps built across 184 countries. Similarly, Deepak Dhanak’s Rocket, based in Surat and Palo Alto, has attracted nearly half a million users in just four months. This “Global Indian Alpha” surge is backed by heavy-weight investors like Lightspeed, Accel, and Salesforce Ventures, who are betting on Indian intellectual capital to automate a significant chunk of the $300 billion global IT services market.
While industry veterans like Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu caution that the underlying craft of engineering remains complex, the democratizing power of these AI agents is undeniable. By removing the “grunt work” of syntax and deployment, Indian founders are empowering a new generation of builders to create global products. This evolution marks a strategic shift for the Indian ecosystem: moving beyond engineering depth to defining the very interface through which the world builds software.
Read more: All vibes, no code: Inside India’s moment in AI-led software