Builder.ai
AI softwareUK
New to Unitard
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1.2 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
- 🦄Became a unicorn2023
- 📈Peak valuation$1.2 Billion ’23
- 💔Became a UnitardMay 2025
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
🔥 Raised & burned
$445M
Total raised
$137K/day
Burned · 8.9y alive
Funding: Bloomberg/Wikipedia
Current status
Bankrupt May 2025; burned $445M
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2016–2025The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2016
2016
Founded in London as Engineer.ai
Sachin Dev Duggal pitches app development “as easy as ordering pizza,” with AI doing the assembly.
Wikipedia
2019
2019
WSJ: the “AI” is mostly people
The Wall Street Journal reports the app-building AI leans heavily on human engineers; the company disputes it and keeps growing.
WSJ
2023
2023
The peak: $1.2B, with Microsoft aboard$1.2B
Microsoft invests and a Qatar Investment Authority-led round finally makes Builder.ai a unicorn.
Reuters
2025
2025
Founder steps aside; the numbers shrink
A new CEO takes over and prior years’ sales come under review — reported revenue turns out to be far smaller than claimed.
Bloomberg
2021–25
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2021–25
Glassdoor reviewers had flagged the gap for years, saying the much-touted AI was really armies of outsourced human developers. When insolvency hit with no notice and salaries left owed, several noted they had predicted the implosion long before.
May 2025
May 2025
Insolvency — joins the Unitard Club 💔
A lender seizes ~$37M from its accounts and the group collapses days later — $445M raised and burned, essentially nothing recovered.
Bloomberg
2025
2025
The post-mortem gets uglier
Reports allege years of round-tripped revenue, and US prosecutors ask for the books.
Bloomberg
$1.2Bof peak value erased · 9 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Builder.ai was a UK startup promising AI-assisted, no-code app development, reaching a ~$1.2B valuation in 2023 with backing including Microsoft. Questions over its technology and finances, plus heavy cash burn (~$445M), collapsed it into insolvency in May 2025, wiping out essentially all value.
Source: TechCrunch/Bloomberg
Where they went
- Sachin Dev Duggalfounder & CEO (stepped down as CEO Mar 2025)Writing Code & trying to understand Cognition at SeKondBrain.ai (AI Labs)
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
