Builder.ai (formerly Engineer.ai Corporation) was a smartphone application development company which claimed to use AI to massively speed up app development. The company was based mostly in the

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and the

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, with smaller subsidiaries in

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and

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. After years of allegations that it has exaggerated its AI capabilities and misreported its financials, the company entered

insolvency In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet i ...

proceedings in 2025.

History

The company was founded in 2016 after splitting from an earlier company. It advertised itself as making website or app creation “as easy as ordering pizza”, which attracted investors. In 2019, ''

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'' reported that Engineer.ai (as it was then known) used human engineers rather than AI for most of its coding work, contradicting the company's marketing claims about its AI-powered development process. In 2023, it received 230 million dollars in a 2023 funding round by investors like

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and the

Qatar Investment Authority The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA; ) is Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes. In November 2024, the QIA had an estimated $526 ...

. Microsoft originally planned to integrate Builder.ai technology with its

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software before creditors seized funds from Builder.ai.

Collapse and bankruptcy

In May 2025,

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accused Builder.ai and another Indian company VerSe of using round-tripping, a practice in which company sells then buys back an asset for the same price, to inflate revenue data between 2021 and 2024. VerSe has denied such claims, while Builder.ai declined to comment. Another report alleged the company sometimes inflated sales figures by more than 20%. In 2025, the company hired auditors to verify post-2023 financials. In mid-2024, the company has decreased its revenue prediction for latter half of 2024 by 25%. On February 27, 2025, it was announced that Sachin Dev Duggal has resigned as CEO, while keeping his board position and the title “chief wizard”. Manpreet Ratia was appointed next CEO. Additionally, in the same year, the company reduced its board from nine seats to five and requested that Duggal give up four of the five seats he previously held. On May 20, Ratia told her employees in an internal call that funds had run dry and the company will enter bankruptcy proceedings. The company has laid off 80% of its workforce, or around 1000 people. In response to high debt and low balance, some shareholders pitched in $75 million to the company in early 2025. In May 2025, Builder.ai announced insolvency proceedings after creditors seized $50 million borrowed in October 2024. Duggal is seeking a deal with investors to buy back the company.

References

{{reflist Technology companies of the United Kingdom 2016 establishments Insolvent companies British companies disestablished in 2025