New York-based Bubble, which offers no-code tools to build web apps, raises $100M led by Insight Partners and says it has over 1M users globally
Bubble, a New York based startup that allows non-coders to design and create web applications, said on Tuesday it raised $100 million …
Context & Ripple Effects
Bubble's $100M round lands mid-way through a 2021 funding run for the no-code category: Webflow raised $140M at a $2.1B+ valuation in January, and Berlin-founded rival Bryter pulled in a $66M Series B in April to push into the US. The category now has multiple nine-figure rounds inside six months, each aimed at letting non-developers assemble working software.
Insight Partners is emerging as the category's most persistent backer: beyond leading Bubble's round here, the firm went on to lead Builder.ai's $100M Series C in 2022 and Appsmith's $41M Series B, giving it positions across both consumer-facing no-code and enterprise low-code stacks.
First-order effects
- Bubble gets the largest war chest among the no-code app builders covered so far, with over 1M users as its scale proof point, and direct capital to defend against Webflow's higher-valuation website-focused platform.
Second-order effects
- Rivals like Bryter, Stacker (whose $20M Series A from a16z came weeks after this round), and Unqork ($110M+ total raised) face pressure to either match Bubble's consumer-scale traction or retreat to defensible verticals like enterprise workflow automation.
- Insight Partners' repeated leadership of no-code and low-code deals makes it a de facto consolidator of the category, able to arbitrage learnings across portfolio companies targeting overlapping buyers.
Third-order effects
- If funding cadence holds, application development bifurcates: professional engineering concentrates on complex systems while routine internal and web apps get assembled by business users on platforms like Bubble, shifting demand from developer headcount to platform subscriptions.
- A sustained influx of non-coders building production apps would eventually force tooling vendors and enterprises to confront governance questions — versioning, security review, ownership of citizen-built apps — that today's rounds do not price in.
The trend: Venture capital is consolidating around no-code platforms as a distinct layer of the software stack, with generalist firms like Insight Partners buying positions across the whole category rather than single winners.