Rork Raises $15M to Power the Next Generation of App Store Entrepreneurs

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Rork, an AI platform designed to build and launch mobile apps for the App Store using natural language, announced a $15 million Seed funding round led by Left Lane Capital, with participation from Peak XV, True Ventures, Goodwater, and existing investor a16z Speedrun, to accelerate its mission of redefining how mobile apps are built and monetized in the AI era.

The Mobile-First Opportunity

AI-powered software creation has emerged as one of the most important shifts in technology. While many startups have focused on websites, Rork focused from day one on mobile — the most valuable and technically demanding surface in software. People spend more time on their phones than on any other device, and for billions worldwide, it is their primary screen.

Rork's platform turns plain-language prompts into fully functional iOS and Android apps built on Swift, React Native, and Expo — real native apps that can be submitted directly to the App Store and Google Play.

Since launching its web product in February 2025 and mobile app in September 2025, Rork has become the leading mobile AI coding platform, ranking in the top two of the App Store worldwide in the "Developer Tools" category and becoming the number one referring website to RevenueCat.

The Founding Story

Rork was founded by serial mobile app entrepreneurs Daniel Dhawan and Levan Kvirkvelia, who had each bootstrapped three startups before launching the company. Dhawan, a former math and physics Olympiad winner, reached number two in the App Store across three countries. Kvirkvelia built Russia's largest educational timetable and Q&A app at 17, scaling it to more than two million users.

The founders initially started Rork as an AI coding tool for web development. But when competitor Lovable launched and quickly dominated the web-focused AI coding category, the team made a pivotal decision: return to their roots in mobile apps — a surface roughly ten times more complex to build for and largely unsolved by AI.

After months of development, Rork launched publicly on February 12, 2025 with a single tweet. Within days, usage surged, attracting investors and developers who saw the potential of AI-powered native mobile development. The founders soon secured a $2.8 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz's Speedrun program, with participation from Hustle Fund, ChapterOne, Founders Inc., Austen Allred, Expo's Charlie Cheever and Evan Bacon, Runway's Siqi Chen, and others. In less than a year, Rork became the largest AI platform for building mobile apps in the world by web traffic.

Introducing Rork Max

Most recently, the company launched Rork Max, powered by Claude Code and Claude Opus 4.6. The announcement generated more than 8 million views on X and doubled the company's annual revenue within two weeks.

Rork Max is the first Swift app builder on the web capable of replacing Xcode, Apple's traditional iOS development environment. Users can build apps for every Apple platform — including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and iMessage — using plain English, test them on real devices, and publish to the App Store in two clicks.

"Not a lot of people realize the true power and speed of progress in AI yet. AI models move faster than anyone could imagine, wiping out entire products and industries as we speak. Rork is winning because of our early bet on AI becoming exponentially better at hard problems - and it's already happening with software engineering," said Levan Kvirkvelia, co-founder of Rork.

The First Acquisition

Shortly after raising its Seed round, Rork acquired Paperline, a macOS app that builds native Swift applications with AI, founded by senior iOS and full-stack engineers Evgenii Mozharovskii and Maksim Konstantinov. The acquisition strengthens Rork's transition toward native Swift development and accelerates its goal of building a web platform capable of replacing Xcode with AI.

Redefining Who Gets to Build

AI is dramatically expanding the universe of who can start software businesses. Entrepreneurs, designers, marketers, students, and creators can now move from idea to live app in hours — without raising money, assembling large engineering teams, or learning to code.

A new wave of founders is already emerging on top of Rork — young, highly product-focused, and TikTok-native. For example, 18-year-old college freshman George Lampropoulos built WrestleAI, an AI-powered wrestling coach, with Rork in roughly a month and scaled it to over $30,000 in monthly revenue. By solving his own problem, identifying an empty App Store niche, and leveraging influencer distribution, he was able to go from idea to revenue at unprecedented speed. These founders reflect a broader shift: as barriers to building fall, success is increasingly defined not by technical expertise, but by speed, taste, and the ability to identify and capture demand early.

"When everyone fears AI replacing their jobs, we believe it will lead to more consumers starting companies. Creating is better than reselling, and the next generation of entrepreneurship will thrive on the App Store — we're already seeing it with younger builders," said Daniel Dhawan, co-founder of Rork. "Rork turns consumers into entrepreneurs."

"Mobile is the most valuable surface area on the planet," says Matthew Miller, Managing Partner at Left Lane Capital. "There is roughly $160B+ in annual consumer spend and five trillion hours of attention flowing through an expanding universe of apps. AI is collapsing the barriers to building software, and Rork is pushing that shift to the most complex and valuable layer of the stack. We're thrilled to partner with Daniel and Levan as they open the door for anyone with an idea to build for the mobile economy."

About Rork

Rork is an AI app builder made specifically for mobile apps. Founded by Daniel Dhawan and Levan Kvirkvelia, Rork enables anyone to build and launch fully functional iOS and Android applications through natural language — no code required. Learn more at rork.com and follow @rork on X and LinkedIn.

About Left Lane Capital

Founded in 2019, Left Lane Capital is a New York and London-based venture capital and growth equity firm investing in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses globally. Left Lane's mission is to partner with extraordinary entrepreneurs who create category-defining companies across growth sectors of the economy. Select investments include Bilt Rewards, Prenuvo, LemFi, WeTravel, Fetcherr, Pearl, Revv, Kittl, and more. For more information, visit www.leftlane.com.

SOURCE Rork