In a blow to Google Cloud, Replit partners with Microsoft

Replit on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership deal with Microsoft that should be good for business for both of them. 

Replit will become available through Microsoft’s enterprise cloud app store, Azure Marketplace, meaning Microsoft shops will be able to purchase Replit subscriptions there. Replit is also integrating its tech with a number of Microsoft cloud services like containers, virtual machines, and Microsoft’s version of Postgres — the database that Replit supports — called Neon Serverless Postgres. That means that Azure should generate its share of revenue from Replit apps that are used in production.

Microsoft famously offers its own hugely popular vibe coder with Github Copilot, but Replit doesn’t really compete with it too much as they are geared toward different users and somewhat different use cases.

Copilot competes with Anysphere’s Cursor as an AI-powered, in-browser coding assistant used by programmers. Replit is popular with programmers, but it can also be used by people with little coding experience. Its users create web apps through natural language prompts, and Replit does the rest: setting up the database, the authentication, the storage, etc. Those with programming experience can then customize features directly, as Replit supports a number of programming languages.

In this case, the two companies are marketing this offering as a prototyping/designing tool, like a competitor to Figma. The companies are also aiming it at non-programmer business managers for build-it-yourself apps. For example, a sales manager could use it to build a tool that tracks correlations between contract renewals and customer support tickets.

“We are enabling all employees across all functions to develop apps, regardless of coding experience, so we are complimentary to Copilot from that perspective,” a Replit spokesperson told TechCrunch. 

Replit is also one of the breakout stars of the vibe coding world. In June, CEO Amjad Masad tweeted that in six months, the company went from $10 million in annual recurring revenue to $100 million. 

It last raised $97.4 million — led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Khosla, Coatue, SV Angel, Y Combinator, Bloomberg Beta, Naval Ravikant, and ARK Ventures — at a $1.1 post-money valuation. Masad said in June that it hasn’t needed to raise since: “We still have over half our funding in the bank.” The startup claims that over 500,000 business users are on its platform

Replit competes with a few other fast-growing startups, including European darling Lovable, which hit $50 million ARR around the same time period, its CEO said, and is reportedly in the process of raising a new round at around a $2B valuation; and Bolt, which grew to about $40 million ARR in about five months as well.

If there is any competitor taking an L from this partnership, it’s Google Cloud: The apps built and run through Replit are typically hosted on Google Cloud. In fact, Replit has been such a feather in Google’s cap, that the cloud giant has profiled the partnership. 

However, this deal is non-exclusive, Replit confirmed to TechCrunch, meaning that the startup is not leaving Google Cloud, but is growing to support Microsoft shops. That also means that other popular vibe coders could strike similar Microsoft deals.