Sheena Leven says she learned two important lessons when she founded her first company, CodeSee. The first lesson was knowing the difference between what the business needs and what sounds visionary. Second, even with new technologies such as AI, the fundamentals always apply.
“Security, compliance, reliability, quality, these don’t just go away in enterprise applications,” she said.
After CodeSee was acquired in 2024, Leven decided he wanted to build a product that would allow business owners without a technical background to build AI applications. She teamed up with AI researcher Shaun Robinson, and last October the two launched Empromptu, an AI service that businesses can use to build AI applications.
Empromptu says all users have to do is tell the platform’s AI chatbot what they want, such as a new HTML or JavaScript app, and the tool will build it for them. It also provides LLM tools to help users fine-tune their results and allows companies to add AI capabilities to their existing code base.
Leven doesn’t think of it as a vibecoding platform, but he does see it competing with companies like Replit and Lovable.
“Vibe coding is great for quick experiments, but Empromptu turns those experiments into real software,” she said. Empromptu “translates ideas into production capabilities with built-in evaluation, governance, and self-improvement,” she continued. “We use real data and complete control to ship to real customers. If vibecoding is brainstorming, Empromptu is building.”
The company announced Tuesday that it has raised $2 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Precursor Ventures. Zeal Capital, Alumni Ventures, Founders Edge and South Loop also participated.
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Leven said the new funding will be used to hire staff and develop new proprietary technology.
The company hopes to target companies starting in regulated industries or “highly complex” areas that involve collecting data and creating applications (such as software to serve hotels).
Overall, Leven wants founders to feel like they can transform their business without having to learn technical skills to take advantage of the AI revolution.
“It’s like any other skill,” Leven said. “And the great thing about this skill is that the AI helps you learn along the way.”
