This AI App Builder Just Landed Backing From Europe's Top Founders

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-28

There's a quiet revolution brewing in Tallinn, and it's got some serious names behind it. bilt.me, an AI-native mobile app builder, just secured $700k in pre-Seed funding. But it's not just the money that's turning heads—it's who's writing the checks. The round was led by Superhero Capital, with a significant vote of confidence from two of Europe's most successful founders: Markus Villig of Bolt and Martin Sokk of Lightyear. That's not casual angel money. When founders who've built billion-dollar companies invest in a startup still in its infancy, they're seeing something most of us miss. ### The European Edge in AI's Application Layer Let's be real for a second. Europe knows it's playing catch-up in the core infrastructure of AI—the chips, the massive models, the compute power. That race might already be run. But according to bilt.me's CEO, Uku Joost Annus, there's one battleground where Europe can still lead. "We should be honest with ourselves," Annus says. "But there's one layer where Europe is still world-class: the application layer, turning AI into things real people use and pay for." That's the thesis behind bilt.me. It's not about building the next foundational AI model. It's about putting that power directly into the hands of anyone with an idea. ### From Hackathon Hustle to Global Ambition The company's origin story feels like a classic startup script. In August 2025, three founders in their early 20s—Annus, Kevin Akkermann, and Karl Kiilaspää—built bilt.me as a hackathon project. Their initial goal? To hack around Apple's restrictive app-testing rules. They won the inaugural cohort of 'ruum,' a hacker space in Tallinn's creative Krulli Quarter. Today, with a lean team of six engineers, they're not just building in secret. They stream their own app development live on Twitch, pulling back the curtain on the process. So, how does it actually work? It's deceptively simple. - You describe your app idea in plain English. - bilt.me's AI agent builds a **native** Android or iOS app (not just a web app). - You preview it instantly on your phone. - The platform helps you publish it directly to the App Store or Google Play. The key differentiator is that native part. While other AI builders often spit out web-based applications, bilt.me is focused on creating real, downloadable mobile apps—without requiring a single line of code from the user. ### More Than Just an App Builder But here's where it gets interesting. Because they're building genuine native apps, the team had to create the entire supporting infrastructure from scratch. They've built their own stack: - **Bilt Payments** for in-app transactions - **Bilt Cloud** for backend services - **Bilt Link** for easy sharing and collaboration They also offer a crucial feature for more advanced users: the ability to export the clean React Native code behind your app. This isn't a walled garden. For pricing, they've got a free tier to get anyone started. Paid plans begin at just $15 per month, with enterprise options that include single sign-on (SSO), SCIM provisioning, and zero data retention policies. ### The Proof Is in the Publishing The traction speaks for itself. bilt.me has already crossed into six figures of annual recurring revenue, with revenue doubling month-over-month for three consecutive months. Thousands of users are actively building on the platform. Roughly 75% of the projects are consumer-facing apps, while 25% are private tools for internal business use. Most importantly, users have already taken apps built on bilt.me and successfully published them as paid products on both major app stores. They're not just prototyping—they're launching real businesses. Markus Villig, Bolt's founder, summed up the potential perfectly: "When I was 19, building an app was one of the biggest barriers to turning my idea into a company. Bilt.me is removing that barrier for the next generation of entrepreneurs." He's betting that lowering this technical hurdle will unlock a wave of new founders. If anyone with a notebook sketch can build and launch a real product, we're not just talking about more apps. We're talking about more companies, more solved problems, and more value created from thin air. ### What's Next? The new funding is fuel for global expansion and deeper platform development. The long-term vision is audacious but clear: to become the default platform for entrepreneurial dreams, where a mobile app is the first step, not the biggest obstacle. In a tech landscape often dominated by hype, bilt.me represents something more tangible. It's a tool built by young founders, backed by proven ones, designed to empower the next wave. They're betting that Europe's strength won't be in building the AI brain, but in crafting the countless hands that put it to work.