In January 2026, the Indian “vibe-coding” startup Emergent secured $70 million in a Series B funding round. The investment was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Khosla Ventures, valuing the company at $300 million.
The company is led by Co-Founder and CEO Mukund Jha (formerly CTO of Dunzo) and Madhav Jha. Emergent is pioneering the “vibe-coding” paradigm, where autonomous AI agents allow non-technical users to build, test, and deploy full-stack applications using natural language and intent-driven workflows.
The barrier between human intent and software execution is collapsing. Emergent addresses this by providing an agentic platform that handles architectural complexity and state management automatically. This shift toward intent-driven software creation mirrors the transition to AI-native code security, where the focus is on enforcing logical outcomes rather than manual syntax.
The new capital will be used to accelerate product R&D and reach a target of $100 million ARR by April 2026. By automating the entire software development lifecycle, Emergent provides a level of operational velocity similar to autonomous legal agents, allowing founders to scale complex products without traditional engineering bottlenecks.
Market Signal
- The “Vibe-Coding” Explosion: Emergent’s $70M round validates that the next era of software is “Intent-First.” By reaching $50M ARR in just seven months, the company has proven that there is a massive enterprise appetite for tools that bypass the traditional coding grind.
- SoftBank’s India Pivot: This investment marks SoftBank’s strategic return to the Indian market after nearly four years. Their focus on Emergent signals a high-conviction bet on platforms that can deliver hyper-scale revenue growth through AI-native labor replacement.
- Founder-Market Velocity: Mukund Jha’s background as Dunzo’s CTO provides the engineering authority needed to abstract complex systems for the masses. This “Technical-to-Tactical” bridge is why the round was heavily oversubscribed despite the tight global funding environment.
Key Details
- Company: Emergent
- Funding: $70M Series B ($300M Valuation)
- Headquarters: Bengaluru / San Francisco
- Lead Investors: SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Khosla Ventures
- CEO: Mukund Jha
- Use Case: Natural language full-stack development, autonomous coding agents, and “Vibe-coding” orchestration
