BUSINESS

Novo Nordisk says people will save up to $1,200 per year on the Wegovy injection and $600 per year on the pill under the new program.

A 57-page whitepaper identifies how future quantum computers could target Ethereum’s wallets, smart contracts, staking system, Layer 2 networks and data verification layer, with combined exposure exceeding $100 billion.

Biogen, already developing a drug that can be used to treat several kidney disorders, is paying a large premium for Apellis Pharmaceuticals

I’ve followed crypto-backed mortgages in my years as a mortgage and housing reporter, and although they seem like a cool concept, I’ve always been wary of them. Companies such as Milo have offered mortgages backed by cryptocurrency for a while, but they’re difficult to qualify for and relatively expensive.But the meaning behind “crypto-backed mortgage” just changed.The mortgage lender Better Home and Finance has teamed up with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to provide crypto-backed home loans — accepted by Fannie Mae.Along with Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that insures mortgages. In June 2025, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte posted on X that he had ordered the GSEs to ready themselves for accepting crypto as an asset for mortgages.Fannie Mae insures conforming loans, which are probably what come to mind when you think of a “regular mortgage.” Conforming loans are the most common type of home loan, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.These new crypto-backed loans differ from their predecessors because you can use crypto for a down payment on a conforming loan backed by Fannie Mae — not on a specialized type of mortgage with hefty requirements. This means that a lot more Americans can qualify for them.How do crypto-backed mortgages supported by Fannie Mae work?Right now, Better Home and Finance is the only lender that offers crypto-backed mortgages via Fannie Mae. So, borrowers must store their crypto in a Coinbase account and get their loan through Better.With this program, you’ll actually take out two loans. The first is a regular, conforming loan insured by Fannie Mae. Like most mortgages, it uses your home as collateral should you default on monthly payments.Related: Redfin reveals shift in home prices, housing marketThe second loan is the crypto-backed one, which covers your down payment. You don’t have to liquidate your cryptocurrency to put the funds toward the down payment — you keep your crypto, and the loan uses your it as collateral rather than your home. Bitcoin and USD Coin are the only types of crypto that can back this loan.Let’s say you want to buy a $500,000 house, but you can’t afford a cash down payment. You could take out a conforming loan for $400,000 backed by Fannie Mae, then use the value of your crypto for a $100,000 down payment.Crypto is volatile, so prospective borrowers may be worried about what happens when their crypto value decreases. Would it affect their loan?Nope. The only time the value of your crypto affects your mortgage is if you default on payments. Then, Better would liquidate your crypto for it to serve as collateral.It’s important to note that you can only use a crypto-backed loan with Fannie Mae for a 30-year or 15-year fixed-rate mortgage. You cannot get an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) or a jumbo loan.How to qualify for a crypto-backed mortgage via Fannie MaeRemember, you are getting two loans with this program, and you must be eligible for each. There’s great news about the Fannie Mae loan: The requirements are the same as for any Fannie Mae conforming loan. Here are the rules:Property value: Fannie Mae requires that your property value be $832,750 or less for a single-unit property in 2026, though conforming loan limits are higher in specific high-cost areas of the U.S. Credit score: There’s no longer a hard-and-fast rule about the credit score needed for a Fannie Mae loan, because the GSE looks at your entire financial picture. But the rule of the thumb is that you’ll need a 620 credit score.Debt-to-income ratio: You must have a DTI ratio of 45% or less — but once again, Fannie Mae considers your financial situation overall, so it could allow a DTI ratio of up to 50%. Financial documents: You’ll need to provide proof of employment, income, and assets from the last two years.Down payment: Fannie Mae also only requires a 3% down payment for primary homes. So, if you have enough cryptocurrency to cover 3%, then you can afford to get a crypto mortgage via Fannie Mae.As for the crypto-backed loan, the main requirement is that you use bitcoin or USD Coin. Better said it may accept other forms of cryptocurrency later, but not yet.

Crypto mortgages may increase opportunity for home buyers. Photo by Oscar Wong on Getty Images

A tool for the ultra-wealthy or a more affordable option for buyers?I’ll admit, I suppressed an eye-roll when I read a headline announcing that Fannie Mae was supporting crypto-backed mortgages. It struck me as a way for the government to launch a program that would make it look like they were helping homebuyers but would actually just help people who were already rich and owned a lot of crypto.But after some digging, I started to change my tune.”41% of consumers don’t have enough cash on hand funds for down payment but own equities or digital assets,” Vishal Garg, CEO of Better Mortgage, told TheStreet. “The ability to pledge these assets in lieu of cash would radically increase the number of consumers who could buy a home.”More on mortgages and real estate:Mortgage rate surge hits home buyers yet againHome-buying costs are 4 times what buyers expectFinancial influencer shares if buying a home is a waste of moneyCrypto owners in the U.S. are also a more diverse group of people than I had imagined. According to a study by Coinbase, about 52 million Americans own crypto; 70% earn $100,000 or less annually, 68% are millennials or Gen Z, and 48% are non-white.”Hopefully, this will help more first-time homebuyers get into the real estate market,” Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis Mortgage, told TheStreet. “Let’s see how this goes. We hope that it will be a game-changer and that other lenders will offer competing products.”These crypto-backed mortgages are more affordable than similar home loans that already exist. For example, Milo’s crypto mortgage minimum is $275,000, while your crypto value only needs to be high enough to cover a 3% down payment with Fannie Mae.Milo also charges 7%-9% on crypto-backed mortgages. You should ultimately end up paying less interest on a crypto loan via Fannie Mae.Mortgage rates have been rising, and this loan offers a unique solution: A representative told TheStreet that Fannie Mae mortgage rates are 0.3% lower on conforming loans through this program than on regular conforming loans. Rather than paying 6.25%, for example, you’d pay 5.95%.The rate will be a little higher on the crypto-backed loan, but since the majority of your debt will be with the lower-rate Fannie Mae mortgage, you’ll likely end up with a pretty good deal.You also may be eligible for a rebate to put toward you closing costs. Coinbase One members could receive up to $5,000 for a rebate, and non-members can get up to $1,000.Related: Suze Orman shares wealth-building strategy for homeowners

Odds favor a Democratic rise in Congress next year, when lawmakers who’ve begun going after firms such as Kalshi and Polymarket may have greater sway.

As one of the world’s biggest tech companies, Salesforce (CRM) has revolutionized businesses by automating and centralizing their data.Its cloud technology provides businesses with a “360-degree view” of their sales, customer service, and marketing operations, helping them collaborate better, increase productivity, and become more profitable.In 2024, Salesforce introduced “Agentforce,” a suite of AI agents that helps businesses “work smarter, be more responsive, and build better relationships” with their customers—often without human oversight.Salesforce’s success can be seen through its stock. Benzinga reported that CRM has generated an average annual return of 16.56% in the past 20 years, which is 7.99% better than the S&P 500.In fact, if you had bought $1,000 worth of shares 20 years ago, you’d be sitting on $20,797.11 in late March 2026.But unlike Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and other tech companies, Salesforce has only executed one split in its 22-year history.What does that mean for investors?When did Salesforce split its stock?In April 2013, Salesforce announced a four-for-one (4:1) stock split, increasing the number of authorized shares of CRM stock from 400 million to 1.6 billion.Shareholders on record as of April 3, 2013, received three additional shares for every share they owned.This differs from Microsoft, which has split its stock 9 times since its March 1986 IPO, and Apple, whose stock has split  5 times since it went public in 1980. Even Oracle (ORCL), where Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff worked before co-founding his company in 1999, has split its stock 10 times since its March 1987 IPO.The question is, does it matter?Related: What does Salesforce do? Who uses it & how it changed everythingWhy stock splits are good for investorsStock splits increase a company’s number of shares outstanding while lowering share prices. This makes shares more affordable for individual investors. It can also improve a stock’s liquidity and increase trading volume, often reducing volatility.Stock splits also send a psychological message to Wall Street, signaling confidence in a company’s future. This is because stock splits typically occur after a company’s stock price has risen significantly, suggesting that management believes the upward trend will continue. This often fuels short-term buying momentum.Related: Is Salesforce a good long-term investment? Its buy-and-hold prospects explainedWhy stock splits no longer matterThe thing is, a stock split does not fundamentally change a company’s value. A common analogy used is that a stock split “cuts a pizza into more slices,” but you still have the same amount of pizza overall.Dow company histories:History of Microsoft: Company timeline & factsHistory of Coca-Cola: Timeline, facts & milestonesHistory of Nike: Company timeline and factsCompanies had previously executed stock splits because, before the advent of automated trading systems, it wasn’t possible to purchase fractional shares of a company’s stock. Back then, higher-priced ($1,000 or more) stocks were simply inaccessible to individual investors — because they’d need a grand to purchase a single share.  Interestingly, Berkshire Hathaway Class A (BRK.A) shares, which are considered the world’s most expensive stock, trading around $703,000, have never split. Berkshire did this to filter out day traders and other short-term investors who aren’t aligned with the company’s long-term objectives.At Berkshire Hathaway’s 1995 shareholder meeting, Warren Buffett himself explained that splitting the stock “would get a shareholder base that would not have the level of sophistication and the synchronization of objectives with us that we have now.”But while stock splits are less common today than they were, say, in the 1990s, the practice has started making a comeback in recent years. CNBC reported that this may be because “the price of some stocks reached absurd levels,” such as Chipotle (CMG), which traded above $3,000 per share before splitting 50-for-1 in June 2024. Or Nvidia (NVDA), which was around $1,200 per share before it split 10-for-1 the same month.Related: How many employees does Salesforce have in 2026? CRM’s workforce, locations & layoffs

McCormick’s stock surges amid talks to combine with Unilever’s foods business, but there’s no mention of the deal in the earnings report.

The company acts as a bridge between traditional banking and digital assets, enabling faster and cheaper foreign-exchange conversions for businesses moving large sums of money.

Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses how retirement recordkeepers select the right technology partner for their platforms with Fintech & Wealth Executive Scott Parry.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkWell, Scott, it’s so great to see you. Thanks for joining us on the program this morning.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveYeah, thanks. I’m glad to be here. Thanks, Jeffrey.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, you’ve had a storied career in technology and specifically financial services technology. You know, I’m very interested, and maybe I’ll start off by asking a very high level question. How does a record keeper or service provider identify the right technologies for its customers?To me, it’s very complex.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveWell, you know, you think about this. If you’re a record keeper, your record keeping software is your business, right? You can’t really be in business without it, right?So it’s essential to your business, right? So, and most of these firms are not building their own stuff. I mean, larger firms are building their own technology, but that’s sort of going away too.It’s hard to build a record keeping solution. And there’s some out there that basically, you know, they work, they account for things, they account for the micro penny. And the reality is, so it’s essential to your business to have it, right?And if you want to grow your business and be at the top and be a top tier player, you’ve got to have a top tier record keeping solution. And you’re basically, you’re dependent on your provider. You know, so I ran the Relias business for a couple of years.So I’m familiar with Relias and I competed with, you know, SSNC with track and, you know, Schwab’s RT product. Here’s the secret. They’re all the same.You know, they all do the same thing. They all record keep, you can, you know, they all trade, they all, you know, have participant, you know, front ends. It really is, you know, they’re all pretty much the same.For me, what was important is the provider, you know, what’s the commitment of the company you’re basically in bed with? Like, you’re making a bet on your provider that they’re going to keep that thing current and they’re going to be state-of-the-art. They’re going, I don’t want to be state-of-the-art.So I would really, you know, having run Relias when it was part of SunGuard and then we got acquired by FIS in the middle of when I was there and ended up running Relias for FIS. You know, you have to ask the question, how much capital are they going to put into these products? How much time, how much money are they going to spend to get these products to, you know, keep them state-of-the-art?And we struggled at, you know, when I was at SunGuard FIS, we struggled to get, you know, they’re big companies, right? They have a whole bunch of products that they’re trying to invest in. And so you basically fight for your dollar, you know, to invest in your product versus the other 240 products that SunGuard has in their product suite.So it’s important to really understand what is the commitment from your provider? What kind of capital are they going to be putting into this solution for the next five years? And where are they going and what’s their history?Have they been keeping state-of-the-art? When I got to run Relias, people were not that happy because the front end had been kind of gotten stale. Well, we spent some, we got some money and we actually reinvested in Relias’ front end.And then we brought statements in the house. So we did some cool stuff, but, you know, but that’s the number one question I’d want to know because whether it’s A, B, or C, they all do the same thing. In reality, they all do the same thing.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkSo Scott, it’s all about the commitment. Let’s talk about, you mentioned some of the developing technologies. Certainly the big buzzword in our industry, yours and mine, is artificial intelligence.A lot of companies are embedding that into their base record-keeping platform. But how do you decide whether or not to go out and develop it yourself or to acquire another company in order to bring it in? Because that’s a big decision.Either way, that’s a big commitment to buy or to develop.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveYeah, that’s a good question. I mean, it depends on what record-keepers you’re talking about. I think most of the smaller record-keepers, they’re not going to have the money to do this on their own.They’re going to need to basically take, you know, take what’s available in the marketplace. If you’re a large company, you’re Fidelity or, you know, some of the larger ones, Empower, maybe you’ve got the capital to build your own, you know, AI tools. But, you know, I think we’re in the infancy of AI.We don’t really know where it’s going to go and who’s going to be the players to survive and whether they’re going to care about what we do. I think what’s, I did a consulting assignment last year, actually, in the pharmaceutical area. And there was some very cool stuff going on with AI companies building AI tools for specific, like for mental health.You could literally call an 800 number if you were having a mental health crisis and you could talk to somebody who you thought was real. And it was a complete AI bot that was asking you questions about how are you feeling? Are you feeling suicidal?Look, all this stuff. And you could say, that’s the last person I’d want to talk to if I’m having a mental health crisis. But the reality is, is trying to get a mental health counselor at 2 a.m. if you’re having a crisis is not so easy, right? And do you want to go to the emergency room? So, that’s a product that was built by, in that industry to be very specific to that particular mental health industry for sort of a real-time kind of emergency care kind of thing. So, the question is, what are the opportunities in the retirement space?I mean, clearly, when I was running Relias, we didn’t call it AI at the time, we called it intelligent workflow. But we built a tool at Relias that allowed you to do distribution. So, we had one client that went from six full-time employees down to two full-time employees because we built intelligence into the distribution process where basically it could dive into the technology, into the database and see, all right, are you in a term status?Yes, you’re in a term status. Okay, go to the next step. Do you have this available to you?Yes, you do. Okay, and then basically, they were just managing exceptions that got kicked out of the intelligent workflow because there wasn’t enough data on that particular person’s process. But if it went through the entire system and every question was checked, it just processed the distribution without any human involvement.So, I’m sure that’s a good example of what AI can do, but also, look, call center, like AI is really big in call centers. I just described an example in the mental health industry. So, clearly, the retirement game, record-keeping game’s about profit margins, it’s about reducing labor.If AI can help reduce labor and processing distributions, I know, like in the trust space, it’s about reconciliation. It’s about post-trade reconciliation. Can the AI be intelligently built to do post-trade reconciliations?That kind of stuff, I think, can certainly cut back on the number of people where they’re just processing exceptions, not actually processing reconciliation. So, I think there’s a lot of opportunity to reduce headcount, which is really what AI is. Unfortunately for people who need jobs, that’s what AI is all about.I do think there’s opportunity in that space to do it. Where it is right now, I don’t exactly know, but I think there’s certainly opportunity.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, well, the thing about AI, or at least today’s AI, I guess, apparently, it learns. So, it’s gonna be growing exponentially and probably changing. Scott, how have today’s chief technology officers had to adapt?So, we’ve talked about, you have to know the commitment of your partner, the technology firm that you’re partnering with. But you also have to have a whole bunch of different skills to be that CTO, to be that person to help drive innovation at your company, at your record-keeping company. It’s an evolved role.It’s no longer just, hey, how does technology plug and play? You’re doing a lot more.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveWell, if you have a CTO, you’re probably a pretty good-sized firm. So, I don’t think most small record-keepers would have a CTO role, per se. When I was a CTO at Citizens Wealth, for me, it was about prioritizing.I had 20 people asking me for stuff all day long. So, we built a whole process to sort of prioritize what was gonna get done. We only had a certain amount of resources to do what we wanted to do.And we would prioritize things by revenue opportunity, cost savings opportunity. So, that was for me to understand, I got 100 requests. I can only get 20 done this quarter.Like, okay. And you can’t be negotiating, sort of people buying you dinner to get you to do their thing. No, you can’t do that.You have to have a real facts-based, numbers-based, is it gonna add revenue, or is it gonna save costs, reduce costs somehow? Those were big drivers. So, that’s important.And once again, getting back to your vendors, when I was in that role, I had 110 different solutions that I was responsible for, were all working from investment, which was probably our biggest relationship, which was millions of dollars per year to investment, down to, we moved from SCI to InnoVest for trust systems. So, it’s about managing your vendors, really. Once again, who’s gonna be staying on top of stuff?Who’s investing? And by the way, SCI went through a huge change from their old Trust 3000 to their new wealth management platform. Didn’t go so well, right?So, not just that they’re investing, but did they do a good job? Are they really hitting on all cylinders in terms of building and designing what they’re trying to do? And how much work is it gonna be for you to move from one system to the next?If it’s got a completely new system that you’re gonna have to retrain everybody, this is what we did. It’s like, well, we’re gonna have to retrain everybody. Let’s go out to bid.Let’s just see who else is out in the market. We ended up leaving SCI and going to InnoTrust and InnoVest, which is now an SS&C company. So, for me as a CTO, it was really, once again, who are your vendors?What’s their commitment? What are the priorities? How much resources do you have?What can you get done this quarter versus next quarter? Who are you listening to? Clients, what’s the technology you’re actually using for project management?We have some really cool, there’s a cool piece of technology called AHA, A-H-A, which is for project management. It’s great. Actually, I can build a website for my client.If they wanted any requests, they just go to the website, they just put in, we’d like to have this done. It would automatically insert it into the queue. And then we’d score it based on whether it was a high priority or low priority.And then we would basically run our scrum teams based on what was coming out of those priorities, basically coming out of AHA. Nice piece of technology, actually. We really enjoy using it.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, the only AHA I know is the song Cake on me. Anyway, and I know you’re a magician because I can see the, I don’t know why I brought that up, but I can see the guitars behind you. Last question, we’ve got about two minutes left.Let me ask you about consolidation. So we just, the day we’re doing this conversation, there was an announced merger between two big insurance companies merging together. So we continue to see consolidation in the retirement industry.What does that mean long-term for things like technology? Do you get the best of both worlds when you bring those two companies together? There’s one less retirement company out there now.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveWell, that was kind of a nightmare as a vendor because you’re losing clients, right? You’re watching your client base drain away just through mergers, right? And also if they have two different solutions, like if they’re using Relias in one division and the other business is using Trap, they’re gonna make a decision.Let’s hope they make the right one for you. So that’s not always a great thing for the vendors. From the provider point of view, yeah, you’ve got, it’s also complicated because now you’ve got a, I’ve actually been asked, talking to a firm about coming in to be a project manager for two banks that have merged and they have two different trust departments and one’s on one FIS trust system, the other is on another FIS trust system, which I used to run both those businesses.So they’re talking to me, well, I have some knowledge about them, about what would be the best system to be on. And my answer might be go to a different company. But there’s complexity in that, right?So it gets complex. Like what’s, one bank has a huge trust department on one system. Another bank has a smaller trust system on another system.Well, who’s got the better operation? About the people, who’s got a better team? And they know that one system.And maybe it’s not the best system, but they know it and getting them to change is gonna be difficult. Obviously you’ve gotta do a migration from one system to the other. Hopefully your vendor will help you do that.So there’s a lot in those. When I was at Citizens and the CTO at Citizens, we acquired a registered investment advisory firm and we took probably two years to basically integrate that RIA into the citizen’s infrastructure from the most basic like email, right? To like secure, like a small RIA doesn’t have as high security as a massive bank, right?So, we found they were using a piece of software that was coming out of Moscow and they’re like, oh, it’s great. I was like, okay, that’s great. But Citizens can’t be using, have a vendor that’s based in Moscow.It’s just not gonna go well, right?Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkSo- Yeah, I can’t see the state departments. I couldn’t see the state department signing up for that, at least in today’s environment.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveMaybe back then, maybe, but- Their biggest thing was, well, the FBI uses this technology. I was like, that’s not a good thing.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, that’s, I don’t know if I would base everything on the FBI. God, clearly it’s an evolving world. There’s a lot of technology.There’s a lot on people’s shoulders in terms of evaluating the technology. Look, we’re not gonna be able to get to every detail today, but I hope that you will come back again very soon. And look, we’ll continue the conversation.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveYeah, no, there’s a lot to talk about. There’s definitely, there’s more to talk about with mergers because there’s different, and what’s going on in the industry, right? People are selling, they’re merging, they’re just getting out, they’re closing down, they’re outsourcing.FIS was a huge on outsourcing, trying to get firms to basically offload their operations folks. And so there’s definitely ways to stay in the business if you want to versus just selling like Prudential did or like Mass Mutual did. Love to have that conversation as well because there’s certainly a size that makes sense.We try to do outsourcing in Relias. It didn’t quite work. Worked great for the Omni clients.So there’s certainly a size difference that makes sense. I’d love to come back and talk about that as well. I’m sorry, they were doing lawn maintenance as we were talking.So if you heard any background noise, it was the blowers out there.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkNo, we did not hear it, but I hope the blowers did a good job and your house looks great. Great to talk to you. And look, we look forward to having you back again very soon, sir.Scott Parry, Wealth Fintech ExecutiveGreat, thank you, Jeffrey.

Softr, the Berlin-based no-code platform used by more than one million builders and 7,000 organizations including Netflix, Google, and Stripe, today launched what it calls an AI-native platform — a bet that the explosive growth of AI-powered app creation tools has produced a market full of impressive demos but very little production-ready business software.The company’s new AI Co-Builder lets non-technical users describe in plain language the software they need, and the platform generates a fully integrated system — database, user interface, permissions, and business logic included — connected and ready for real-world deployment immediately. The move marks a fundamental evolution for a company that spent five years building a no-code business before layering AI on top of what it describes as a proven infrastructure of constrained, pre-built building blocks.”Most AI app-builders stop at the shiny demo stage,” Softr Co-Founder and CEO Mariam Hakobyan told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview ahead of the launch. “A lot of the time, people generate calculators, landing pages, and websites — and there are a huge number of use cases for those. But there is no actual business application builder, which has completely different needs.”The announcement arrives at a moment when the AI app-building market finds itself at an inflection point. A wave of so-called “vibe coding” platforms — tools like Lovable, Bolt, and Replit that generate application code from natural language prompts — have captured developer mindshare and venture capital over the past 18 months. But Hakobyan argues those tools fundamentally misserve the audience Softr is chasing: the estimated billions of non-technical business users inside companies who need custom operational software but lack the skills to maintain AI-generated code when it inevitably breaks.Why AI-generated app prototypes keep failing when real business data is involvedThe core tension Softr is trying to resolve is one that has plagued the AI app-building category since its inception: the gap between what looks good in a demo and what actually works when real users, real data, and real security requirements enter the picture.Business software — client portals, CRMs, internal operational tools, inventory management systems — requires authentication, role-based permissions, database integrity, and workflow automation that must function reliably every single time. When an AI-generated prototype fails in these areas, fixing it typically requires a developer, which defeats the purpose of the no-code promise entirely.”One prompt might break 10 previous steps that you’ve already completed,” Hakobyan said, describing the experience non-technical users face on vibe coding platforms. “You keep prompting, keep trying to fix errors that the AI generated, and you end up maintaining something you didn’t even sign up for in the first place.”This critique targets a real structural limitation in how many AI app builders work today. Platforms that fully rely on AI to generate application code from scratch leave users with a codebase they cannot read, debug, or maintain without technical expertise. To connect those generated apps to real databases, login systems, or third-party services, users often must integrate tools like Supabase and make API calls — tasks that effectively require them to become developers. Softr’s position is that these platforms have replaced one form of coding with another, swapping programming languages for English-language prompts that carry all the same fragility.How Softr’s building block architecture avoids the hallucination problem that plagues AI code generatorsRather than generating raw code, Softr’s platform uses what Hakobyan describes as “proven and structured building blocks” — pre-built components for standard application functions like Kanban boards, list views, tables, user authentication, and permissions. The AI interprets a user’s requirements, guides them through targeted questions about login functionality, permission types, and user roles, then assembles these tested building blocks in a constrained, intelligent way. Only when a user requests functionality that falls outside the standard 80% covered by these blocks does the system build a custom component with AI.”It basically never hallucinates, because it’s all built on an infrastructure that’s secure and constrained,” Hakobyan explained. “It doesn’t generate code or leave you with code, because underneath, it uses our existing building block model.”The result is not a code repository. It is a live application running on Softr’s infrastructure, with a visual editor that users can continue to modify — either by prompting the AI further or by directly manipulating the no-code interface. This dual-editing model is a deliberate design decision that Hakobyan frames as the platform’s core differentiator. “It almost combines the best of both worlds of AI and no code, and really lets users to either continue iterating with AI or then continue working with the app visually, which is much simpler and easier and for them to have control,” she said.Core platform foundations — authentication, user roles, permissions, hosting, and SSL — are built in from the start, eliminating what Hakobyan calls the “blank canvas problem” that plagues vibe coding platforms, where every user must architect fundamental application infrastructure from scratch via prompts. The platform uses a SaaS subscription pricing model, with each plan including a set number of AI credits and the option to purchase more — though the visual editor means users don’t always need to consume credits, since direct manipulation of the no-code interface is often faster and more precise.Inside the five-year journey from Airtable interface to profitable AI-native platformSoftr’s journey to this moment has been a gradual, disciplined expansion that stands in contrast to the rapid fundraising cycles common among AI startups. The company launched in 2020 as a no-code interface layer on top of Airtable, the popular enterprise database product. Co-founded by Armenian entrepreneurs Hakobyan and CTO Artur Mkrtchyan, the startup raised a $2.2 million seed round in early 2021 led by Atlantic Labs, followed by a $13.5 million Series A in January 2022 led by FirstMark Capital.What happened next is notable for its restraint. Softr has not raised additional capital since that 2022 Series A. Instead, it has grown to profitability. “We have been profitable for the past whole year, and we’re about 50 people team,” Hakobyan told VentureBeat. “We have grown to eight-digit revenue fully PLG, no sales team, mostly through word of mouth, organic growth.”That financial profile — eight-figure annual revenue, profitable, 50 employees, no sales team — is striking in a market where many AI-powered competitors are spending heavily to acquire users. Over the past year, the company has steadily expanded its technical capabilities, moving beyond its original Airtable dependency to support Google Sheets, Notion, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and other databases.In February 2025, TechCrunch reported on this expansion, with Hakobyan explaining that many potential customers had “data scattered across many different tools” and needed a single platform to unify that fragmented infrastructure. Today, Softr offers 15-plus native integrations with external databases, plus a REST API connector for additional data sources. The new AI Co-Builder represents the culmination of this multi-year evolution — combining the building block architecture, the broad data integration layer, and a new AI interface into a single platform for business application creation.How Softr positions itself against both no-code incumbents and vibe coding startupsSoftr’s launch lands in a rapidly fragmenting competitive landscape, and Hakobyan is deliberate about where she draws the lines. On one side sit traditional no-code platforms like Bubble, which offer deep customization and design freedom but require users to build everything from scratch — database schemas, pixel-level layouts, authentication systems — creating a steeper learning curve. A TechRadar review noted that while Softr’s blocks don’t offer the same design freedom as Bubble, the platform’s simplicity makes it accessible to genuinely non-technical users. In a comparison published by Business Insider Africa in June, Softr was characterized as offering “minimal learning curve, especially for internal or web-based tools,” though with limitations in scalability for more complex applications.On the other side sit the AI-first code generation tools that Hakobyan views as fundamentally misaligned with business software requirements. “Before people were coding, then they were coding through APIs, now they are coding almost through a human language interface, right, just by with English,” Hakobyan said. “But what Softr does is fundamentally different. It abstracts all of that and makes the creation simple.”She also distinguishes Softr from developer-focused AI coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code, positioning those as tools that make professional developers more efficient rather than tools that enable non-developers to build software.”There are amazing tools for developers — that’s great. The target audience is developers,” Hakobyan acknowledged. Instead, Softr targets a specific and potentially enormous market: businesses that need custom internal and external-facing operational tools and currently rely on spreadsheets, email, or rigid off-the-shelf software that doesn’t match their actual processes. Hakobyan described use cases ranging from asset production workflows for film companies — where internal teams, external agencies, and approvers interact across a multi-stage process — to lightweight CRM replacements for teams that don’t need the full complexity of Salesforce. “There’s not even a vertical solution for this type of process,” she said. “It’s very custom to each organization.”What Netflix, Google, and thousands of non-tech companies actually build on the platformMany of Softr’s highest-profile customers — Netflix, Google, Stripe, UPS — were using the platform before the AI Co-Builder even existed, building on the company’s original no-code foundation. But the user base extends far beyond Silicon Valley. Non-tech organizations in real estate, manufacturing, and logistics represent a significant portion of Softr’s customer base — companies that often still manage core processes with pen, paper, and spreadsheets.”A lot of these companies — you might think they already have the solutions, but they don’t,” Hakobyan noted. “In tech companies, most of the time, CRM and project management tools are already established. But most of our customers are using Softr for internal operational tooling or workflow tooling, where the use case involves lots of different departments and even external parties.”The company is SOC 2 (Type II) compliant and GDPR compliant, with additional compliance capabilities in development. Hakobyan noted that auditing and governance functionality can be built directly into applications using the platform’s database and workflow tools, with a native logging and auditing system expected to ship in the near term. Softr’s billion-user ambition and the Canva analogy that explains its strategySoftr’s stated mission — to empower billions of business users to create production-ready software — is audacious, but Hakobyan frames the AI Co-Builder launch as a fundamental acceleration of the trajectory the company has been on for five years. “Everything people would have to spend hours doing is done within five minutes,” she said. “And obviously that helps more people to actually build real software.”The company plans to layer a product-led sales motion on top of its existing PLG engine, targeting larger enterprise customers with higher average contract values. This represents a deliberate strategic expansion from the small and mid-sized businesses that have formed Softr’s core customer base — a segment that TechCrunch identified as natural Softr customers as far back as the company’s 2022 Series A, given that those firms are most likely to be priced out of the competitive developer market.Hakobyan draws an analogy that has apparently become common among the company’s users: Softr as “Canva for web apps.” Just as Canva made professional design accessible to non-designers, Softr aims to make business software creation accessible to non-developers. Whether the company can translate its disciplined growth and profitable foundation into a platform that genuinely serves that enormous addressable market remains to be seen. Softr faces intensifying competition from both traditional no-code incumbents adding AI capabilities and well-funded AI-native startups approaching the problem from the code-generation side.But Softr enters this next phase with advantages that many competitors lack: a profitable business, a million-user base already shipping production software, and an architectural approach that treats AI as an accelerant layered on top of proven infrastructure rather than an unpredictable replacement for it. “No code alone had its own problems, and AI alone also just can’t do the job,” Hakobyan said. “The combination is what’s going to be making it really powerful.”For the past five years, Softr bet that the hardest part of software wasn’t writing the code — it was getting the databases, permissions, and business logic right. Now the company is betting that in the age of AI, that conviction matters more than ever. The millions of business users who have never written a line of code but desperately need custom software are about to find out whether Softr is right.