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An early-stage VC shares why he's not investing in AI coding startups ...
By Shubhangi Goel You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email. Antler Asia's cofounder and managing partner says he won't invest in a new vibe-coding startup Antler 2026-05-01T04:01:02.555Z Antler partner Jussi Salovaara isn't interested in investing in new vibe-coding startups. Salovaara said he's excited about founders with deep domain expertise instead. He said we may see existing AI coding firms acquire smaller ones. He's invested in over 600 companies and oversees $72 million in assets. But you won't find a vibe-coding company in his portfolio of the earliest-stage startups. Jussi Salovaara, the cofounder and managing partner at startup accelerator Antler Asia, said he doesn't see much more room for new entrants in the AI-assisted coding space."It's been fantastic, but starting new vibe-coding companies right now feels like it doesn't make sense anymore," Salovaara, who is based in Singapore, told Business Insider. "It's an exciting category, but the guys are already out there."He said he sees his colleagues at Antler and founders he has invested in using AI to more efficiently write their code and build tools. The firm's Europe fund was an early investor in $6.6 billion Swedish vibe-coding darling Lovable.Still, Salovaara said he doesn't see vibe coding as a viable category for new, early-stage investments. He said he's constantly weighing how any startup would defend itself against industry advancements."A million people are going to do the same. How do you differentiate?Anthropic ships your product next week, what happens to you? Model costs go up 5x, what happens to you?"The future of vibe coding and the businesses it has started to disrupt is one of the most hotly debated topics in tech this year. While professional developers continue to say that AI-coded software poses risks and ultimately requires human input, startups like Lovable, Cursor, and Emergent have raised billions, struck big deals, and seen their valuations soar.Salovaara said that existing AI coding companies may see some consolidation."It's going to be like a holistic kind of setup with a few winners, and they're going to stay, they're going to start acquiring smaller companies and just going to stay on top," he said.But there's one type of AI company the VC of eight years said he's excited about.Salovaara said he wants to invest in companies whose founders have deep domain expertise, a longtime focus for Antler."They c...
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