Amjad Masad has been building Replit for a decade, but the last 18 months have been something else entirely. The AI coding assistant company went from $2.8 million in revenue in all of 2024 to tracking toward what Masad describes as a billion-dollar annual run rate.
At TechCrunch’s sold-out StrictlyVC event in San Francisco on Thursday night, Masad addressed the burning question: In a world where rival Cursor is reportedly in talks to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion, is Replit also bound to sell? He also discussed Replit’s net revenue retention reaching as high as 300%, his willingness to take Apple to court over alleged lies in its App Store battle with Replit, and the possibility of the company investing in its own customers.
On independence, Masad was unambiguous. Unlike Cursor, which he said has been operating at negative 23% gross margins, he argued Replit has the economics to make that path viable — even if he stopped short of ruling out a sale entirely.
The Cursor Deal and Replit’s Strategy
Masad noted that it's hard being an independent, smaller AI company building on foundation models, especially if burning cash. Cursor's reported negative 23% margins make independence tough. Replit, targeting a different customer set — mostly non-technical users — has been gross margin positive for over a year. Replit offers an end-to-end platform from prompt to deployed application, handling security, databases, and migration.
Is Replit for Sale?
"We're going to try to stay independent," Masad said. "I would love for us to remain an independent company. We've been around for 10 years, before it was even accepted that you could make apps just from ideas."
Ranking AI Model Providers
Masad ranked Anthropic as "still undefeated on the core agentic loop," with GPT-5 catching up quickly, and Google's Flash family excelling on price-performance. He also praised newer labs like Reflection AI and Chinese models like Kimi.
Winning Enterprise Deals
Most sales are product-led, with customers like Zillow and Meta adopting organically. In formal bake-offs, Replit wins on product and security. "We spent 10 years battling crypto scammers and hackers, so our cybersecurity function is as good as a dedicated cybersecurity startup," Masad said.
Churn and Retention
Churn is very low, and net retention hits 300% in some cases. Customers often find that rebuilding apps into their own stacks makes them worse, so they keep apps on Replit. Bain & Company replaced Tableau and Power BI with Replit and Databricks.
AI Bloat and Customer ROI
Masad downplayed concerns about regrettable spend: "Enterprises are very ROI conscious... If they spend $100,000 a month with Replit, they're usually generating $2 million, $3 million, $10 million in some kind of return."
Apple App Store Battle
Replit has been blocked from App Store updates for months, allegedly because it enables iOS app creation. Masad called Apple's stated reason "a lie" and said Replit can prove it in court if needed, but he hopes to avoid litigation.
Investing in Customers
Masad said the company has considered investing in customers for equity and it remains a possibility.