Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Faked out $445 million


Bankrupt Microsoft-Backed 'AI' Company Was Using Indian Engineers To Fake It: Report

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, JUN 03, 2025 - 08:22 AM

Last week, British AI startup backed by Microsoft and the Qatar Investment Authority, Builder.ai, filed for bankruptcy after its CEO said a major creditor had seized most of its cash. 

Valued at $1.5 billion after a $445 million investment by Microsoft, the company claimed to leverage artificial intelligence to generate custom apps in 'days or weeks,' which would produce functional code that had less human involvement. 

Now they've gone cloth-off... as Bloomberg reports they had a 'fake it till you make it' strategy while having inflated 2024 revenue projections by 300%. Instead of AI, the company was actually using a fleet of more than 700 Indian engineers from social media startup VerSe Innovation for years to actually write the code. 

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