Oslo-based Riff, formerly Databutton, has raised $16 nillion in a Series A led by Northzone, bringing its total funding to $21 million. The vibe coding platform helps business teams build and launch production-ready AI applications using starter apps, templates, and expert guidance, aiming to tackle the high failure rate of enterprise AI initiatives. Existing investors Skyfall Ventures, Maki.vc, Sondo Capital, and Global Founders Capital joined the round, alongside new backer Illusian. Riff plans to use the funding to scale adoption across industries including financial services, logistics, healthcare, and manufacturing, enabling teams at companies like Twilio and Cognite to turn AI potential into tangible business impact.
Founded by Trygve Karper, Martin Røed, and Viral Shah, Riff is targeting the ‘do-ers’ at all levels inside every business, helping them in creating AI applications and agents to rapidly advance their productivity and output.
They’re set on fixing a major problem in the AI app building space: while AI tools have exploded, impact has lagged, and businesses see 95% of AI initiatives fail. Riff represents an advance on existing vibe coding tools by offering users a platform that enables native data connections and integration into secure production grade-infrastructure. To assist building, users get access to pre-set starter apps, templates, and expert guidance from Riff’s team.
The result of this: users can build apps combining complexity, real data, and security, empowering them to solve real business problems. Real world value leads to much higher rates of customer satisfaction and retention, driving higher completion rates for projects.
The company is already seeing strong adoption across numerous industries including financial services, logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, and consumer goods. More than 150,000 are using Riff across companies like Twilio and Cognite, leveraging the platform to optimize internal operations.
Trygve Karper, CEO & co-founder of Riff, says: “It’s really inspiring to see what people are achieving with Riff. Many come to us after weeks stuck in limbo after having been promised the moon on hyped products. Having created modular building blocks that drive immediate value, our builders taste success out of the gate. This Series A funding is incredibly exciting because it lets us scale that impact to thousands more doers in the real world.”
Riff’s founding team includes Trygve Karper (CEO), Martin Røed (CTO), and Viral Shah (CPO), who all previously worked across engineering and product teams at Cognite, Norway’s first unicorn. Other early team members include Andrzej Golebiowski, former Cognite COO, and Jack Chen, former VP Growth at Builder.ai.
Michiel Kotting, partner at Northzone, says: “Vibe coding is ushering in a transformational shift in software development, where anyone can create, launch, and maintain applications without having to be able to code. What makes RIff special in our mind is the relentless focus on providing doers with the ability to build tooling that works in production. We’re excited to be joining Trygve, Martin, and Viral on their journey to create the last mile of transmitting the incredible power of AI to real business impact for everyday users.”
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Read the orginal article: https://arcticstartup.com/riff-formerly-databutton-raises-16m-series-a/
