According to TechCrunch, Swedish “vibe coding” startup Lovable has raised $330 million in a Series B round at a staggering $6.6 billion valuation, led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures. This funding comes just five months after a $200 million Series A that valued the company at $1.8 billion. Launched in 2024, Lovable lets users build apps with text prompts and has grown at a blistering pace, reaching $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in eight months and then doubling to $200 million ARR just four months later. The company claims over 100,000 new projects are started on its platform daily and counts Klarna, Uber, and Zendesk as customers. CEO Anton Osika credits scaling from Sweden, resisting calls to move to Silicon Valley. The raise follows a November incident where the company admitted to not paying EU VAT, which Osika linked to criticism of the region’s startup environment.
The blazing speed of AI money
Here’s the thing: the numbers here are almost comical. Tripling your valuation in five months? Doubling your revenue from $100M to $200M ARR in just four? It’s the kind of growth trajectory that feels like it’s running on a different clock. Basically, we’re watching the AI gold rush play out in real-time, and Lovable hit a massive vein. They launched this year. The sheer velocity of capital deployment tells you everything about the fear of missing out (FOMO) in venture circles right now. When you see names like Salesforce Ventures and Databricks Ventures piling in, it’s a clear signal that the big strategic players are placing their bets on this being a foundational layer of the future.
More than just vibes?
But let’s talk about “vibe coding” itself. It’s a catchy, slightly dismissive term for a powerful idea: lowering the barrier to creating software. Lovable’s plan to use this cash for deeper integrations, enterprise features, and infrastructure like databases and payments shows they’re not just a toy. They want to be the full-stack platform where ideas become real, deployable applications. That’s a huge ambition. And with major enterprise logos already on board, it seems to be working. The question is, can they maintain this insane growth while actually building a robust, reliable platform? Scaling at this speed is a technical and operational nightmare.
The Silicon Valley question
I find Osika’s comments about staying in Sweden fascinating. It’s a classic narrative pushback. For years, the dogma was that you had to be in the Valley. Now, with remote work normalized and talent global, he’s making a stand. And he’s got a $6.6B valuation to back up his argument. It’s a powerful story for the European ecosystem. But then there’s the VAT issue. Getting called out for not paying taxes and then framing it as an EU problem? That’s a risky PR move. It feels like the classic “move fast and break things” attitude clashing with the realities of running a global business. You can build from anywhere, but you still have to follow the rules everywhere you operate.
A crowded and pricey field
Don’t think Lovable is alone in this. As noted, Cursor just raised at a $29B valuation. The market is validating this category in a huge way, which means the competition is going to get fierce and expensive. All this funding isn’t just for R&D—it’s war chests for talent acquisition and customer grabs. So what’s the endgame? For tools this horizontal and developer-focused, the playbook usually points toward being acquired by a cloud giant or going public to raise even more capital to outspend rivals. At these valuations, the pressure to find a path to even more astronomical numbers is immense. The vibe is hot, but the business temperature is getting scorching.
