Microsoft invests in Builder.ai, to partner on expanding market presence

Microsoft said it has made an equity investment in Gurgaon-headquartered software development platform Builder.ai and that the two companies would work together to make software development accessible to the next set of non-tech users.

The terms of the investment were not disclosed.

The partnership will allow Microsoft to expand its offerings for SMB and micro SMB customers.

Builder.ai provides an artificial intelligence powered platform which lets users build software in a faster and more affordable manner without needing any technical skills.

The two companies will work together on taking these tools to a broader set of customers and work together on a go-to-market strategy.

“This partnership will give us access to markets where we don’t have a strong presence,” said Sangeeta Bavi, executive director- Digital Natives, Microsoft.

Integrating the Builder platform with Microsoft offerings will help the company boost its offerings for the SMB and Micro SMB segment. Microsoft will also integrate Builder across its other solutions like Teams where users will be able to access the Builder chatbot and order an app through the Teams platform.

“As part of the partnership, Builder will become part of our ISV program that we take to large enterprises and we will create more surfaces of discovery for Builder across Microsoft products,” said Bavi.

This includes integrations across Azure OpenAI Service and other Azure Cognitive Services with Builder.ai’s software assembly line and adoption of the Microsoft Cloud and AI.

The two companies have been working together for the last few years, and this partnership is the next step towards making software development accessible beyond citizen developers.

While Microsoft has its own low-code no-code solution, this will enable people with no tech skills to order an app and take their ideas online.

“This will be a 36-48 month rollout and will let the next 100 million ideas become digitally native,” said Sachin Dev Duggal, Founder of Builder.ai.

Through this collaboration, Builder.ai will help businesses advance their digital transformation journey in a frictionless manner, offering customers integrated access to cloud services on Azure (payments, infra, messaging etc) to support the applications they are building.

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