A Billion Dollar AI Startup Just Collapsed Spectacularly

As the artificial intelligence industry struggles with ever-rising costs — not to mention a steady uptick in hallucinations — investors are getting impatient. One investment firm went as far as seizing $37 million from accounts owned by Builder.ai, a UK-based AI startup meant to make developing apps "as easy as ordering a pizza." That left the company with just $5 million, according to Bloomberg, prompting its senior lenders to place it into default. With very little cash left to keep the ship afloat, CEO Manpreet Ratia closed the startup's doors and filed for bankruptcy. Builder.ai was previously one of the most well-funded tech startups in the game, with over $450 million in backing from sources as big as tech giant Microsoft, Japanese investment firm SoftBank, and the Qatari government's sovereign wealth fund. That gave it a valuation worth over $1 billion, drawing comparisons to Mark Zuckerberg's Meta. Ratia told the Financial Times the startup was "unable to recover from histo ... Read full article.