{"id":9416,"date":"2025-06-03T12:07:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T12:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=9416"},"modified":"2025-06-03T12:07:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T12:07:06","slug":"microsoft-backed-builder-ai-bankrupt-after-ai-powered-by-700-indian-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=9416","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft-backed Builder.ai bankrupt after \u2018AI\u2019 powered by 700 Indian engineers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>A London-based artificial intelligence company valued at $1.5 billion has filed for bankruptcy after it was revealed that its much-touted \u2018neural network\u2019 was actually a workforce of more than 700 engineers based in India.<\/p>\n<p>Builder.ai, backed by a reported $455 million investment from Microsoft, had claimed that its AI app-building service, \u2018Natasha\u2019, could design and code applications autonomously and at unprecedented speed.<\/p>\n<p>However, investigations showed that most of the work was carried out by human engineers, not artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Further scrutiny by Bloomberg uncovered that Builder.ai engaged in questionable financial practices with VerSe, an Indian social media startup.<\/p>\n<p>Employees revealed that while some clerical tasks were assisted by general software, the bulk of coding and app development was performed manually.<\/p>\n<p>This practice, which went on for eight years, came to light in May 2025, triggering a rapid collapse of the company.<\/p>\n<p>In a LinkedIn statement, Builder.ai announced it would be \u201centering into insolvency proceedings,\u201d citing historic challenges and past decisions that severely impacted its financial standing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite the tireless efforts of our current team and exploring every possible option, the business has been unable to recover,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n<p>The two companies reportedly exchanged inflated invoices to artificially boost sales figures between 2021 and 2024. VerSe has denied the allegations, with co-founder Umang Bedi describing the claims as \u201cbaseless and false.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fallout from Builder.ai\u2019s exposure has sparked discussions about transparency and accountability in the AI industry, particularly as investors continue to pour funds into language models and automation technologies.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A London-based artificial intelligence company valued at $1.5 billion has filed for bankruptcy after it was revealed that its much-touted \u2018neural network\u2019 was actually a workforce of more than 700 engineers based in India. Builder.ai, backed by a reported $455 million investment from Microsoft, had claimed that its AI app-building service, \u2018Natasha\u2019, could design and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}