This startup lets you vibe code your own app on your iPhone. It just raised $9 million from Alexis Ohanian's fund.

VibeCode founders Kehan Zhang, Ansh Nanda, and Riley Brown.Courtesy of VibecodeThere's a new vibe coding startup in town.Vibecode, which lets people make apps using AI directly in an iOS mobile app, launched this year.The startup exclusively told BI that it raised $9.4 million from Alexis Ohanian's 776 fund.I bet you have an app idea.And if you do, you've probably asked yourself, "Could I use AI to code it into reality?"That's what Vibecode, a startup that uses AI to help you "vibe code" apps, is trying to make easier with a mobile app of its own.Vibecode exclusively told Business Insider that it recently nabbed a $9.4 million seed investment led by Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, with participation from Long Journey Ventures, Neo, First Harmonic, and Afore Capital, as well as angel investors from Google, OpenAI, and Expo."For me, it was the democratization of coding and app creation that made Vibecode stand out," Ohanian told Business Insider in a statement. "Just describe your idea in plain language, right on your phone, and that's it. The mobile interface is a massive unlock in terms of accessibility, fun, and real-world use."Ansh Nanda, CEO of Vibecode and a former engineer at Bluesky, said that after watching AI coding take off last year with tools like Cursor, he was convinced this AI use case would only grow."How do we bring this from technical people to the masses?" Nanda said he and one of his cofounders asked themselves at the time.Vibecode has eight employees, including Nanda and his two cofounders, AI content creator Riley Brown and Kehan Zhang.In June, Vibecode launched its iOS mobile app after testing a small beta through the spring. As of Wednesday, it's ranked the 12th most popular app in the "Developer Tools" category on the Apple App Store.Vibecode launched a mobile app that lets people use AI to create their own apps.Screenshot from Apple App Store/VibecodeThe app lets users explain their vision for an app using plain language, and provides examples like "note-taking app" or "Wordle clone."Then, Vibecode starts, well, vibe coding.Up until this week, Vibecode was relying on Anthropic's Claude model to develop apps. The startup has expanded its offerings to include multiple AI models, including OpenAI's new GPT-5, Kimi K2, and Qwen 3 Coder.After you describe the app you want to build, Vibecode starts building the code, which you can then tweak and update "as many times as you want" by prompting the AI chat, Nanda said.While it's free to start using Vibecode, sending more prompts and triggering updates for the app costs money. Vibecode has subscriptions from $20 to $200 a month.Nanda told BI that more than 40,000 apps have been made with Vibecode. He did not disclose the number of users Vibecode has.Apps as content in the AI eraSome early creations by Vibecode include a clone of the running app Strava, but with the slight twist of tracking what shoes the person is wearing. There are also recipe tracking apps and other personal utility tools, like one that helps someone track how many alcoholic drinks they're consuming, per Nanda."We're also seeing a bunch of users trying to build apps that they want to get onto the app store, either for their own business or for just starting a new business," Nanda said.With tools like Loveable, Replit, Cursor, and now Vibecode, making apps is only getting easier.If Instagram made everyone a photographer, and TikTok made us video stars, will AI make us all developers?"Apps are becoming something anyone can create and share as easily as a meme or a story, which means we're fully in the 'apps as content' era," Ohanian said. "As more people look to build, remix, and distribute quick-turn ideas, our investment aligns with the belief that the next billion-dollar platforms will be those that allow people to continually 'ship' creative output as easily as posting content online."But in the AI era, with ease also comes slop.Nanda said Vibecode's goal is to make quality apps, especially as it streamlines its tools for publishing apps."We want to make sure that we're not just creating more apps in the app store," he said.Read the original article on Business Insider

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