The Takeoff Has Started

Rocketable raises $6.5M to build fully automated software companies

The Takeoff

"We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started." — Sam Altman, June 10, 2025

Sam’s essay put into words what I'd been feeling for weeks.

Something fundamental shifted in May. That was the first month software development agents actually started working for me.

Not just helping. Not just speeding up my hands-on coding. Working.

Claude Code and Codex became my default way of building software. Windsurf was relegated to fallback status — to be used only on the increasingly rare occasions when prompting agents didn't work out.

But here's the thing: it's not just that AI writes better code now.

Something bigger is happening.

The Funding

Before I explain what the takeoff looks like from where I sit, some news: Rocketable has raised a $6.5M seed round to build a large portfolio of fully automated SaaS businesses.

True Ventures led the round, with participation from Bloomberg Beta, Indie.vc, Rebel Fund, Y Combinator, Teambuilder Ventures, 468 Capital, Seaplane Ventures, Unpopular Ventures, Multimodal Ventures, Neer Venture Partners, Sparkwave Capital, Tekedia Capital, and an exceptional group of operator-angels.

When I raised this round in March, it was a bet on AI's trajectory. Agents were showing promise but weren't quite "working" yet.

Today? The trajectory is steeper than even I expected.

Things are accelerating. But why?

The Self-Improvement Moment

Picture this: 100,000 lines of legacy code. 1.3M tokens. Zero documentation. The kind of repo that makes senior engineers weep.

Claude Code was struggling with it. But instead of reverting to co-pilot mode in an IDE, I pushed Claude to solve its own problem.

Over one weekend, I prompted it to analyze every file, every function, every database collection in the product. I asked Claude to build the documentation the original developers never created by reading the codebase line by line.

Then I brought in Codex and Gemini as peer reviewers — different models checking each other's work, each contributing their strengths.

$100 in API fees and 48 hours later, I had documentation that would've taken a team weeks to write.

The result? Claude Code can now build significant features in that codebase without me opening an IDE.

The AI agent had solved its own problem.

That's when it crystallized: we've crossed the threshold where AI systems can bootstrap their own improvement.

The Meta-Capability Unlock

Claude 4 isn't just better at writing code. It's much better at writing prompts.

And being good at writing prompts AND writing code is the key unlock.

Claude Code can now orchestrate and execute the work needed to run a self-improving software product.

Need customer feature requests transformed into detailed specs? Give Claude a brief description, raw customer support data, and access to your codebase. It will figure out how to build it for your specific architecture.

Need better UI design feedback loops? Ask Claude to give itself screenshotting capabilities so it can run build-test-iterate cycles without a human in the loop.

Need expert code reviews on every AI-generated PR? Ask Claude for a prompt that channels a world-class CTO for your specific tech stack. Then ask Codex to do the same.

The dream of one-shotting major new features in a complex codebase with a single prompt? Still a dream.

But the scaffolding needed to extract high-quality output from today's agents can now be written by those same agents.

That's what the takeoff looks like to me.

The Next Steps

The majority of Rocketable’s $6.5M seed round will go toward acquiring 3+ SaaS products. These acquisitions will serve as the real world laboratory for building and perfecting the platform that autonomously operates software businesses.

I’m also hiring a small team to build that platform.

For SaaS Founders: Apply to Be Acquired

What I'm looking for:

• $500K-$2M annual revenue

• 2+ years operating history

• Revenue stable or growing

• Already profitable (or clear path to profitability)

What you get:

• Fair price based on current performance

• Participation in the financial upside of automation

• Freedom to build your next thing (no golden handcuffs)

The process:

1. Share your data (revenue, costs, metrics)

2. We underwrite based on performance + automation potential

3. Offer in 2 weeks, deal done in 2 months

4. 1 quarter transition max. Then you're free.

I'm not a financial engineer. I'm a builder who wants to buy SaaS products that can thrive under AI-native operations.

Interested? Apply here to be acquired by Rocketable.

For Builders: Join the Mission

That weekend with Claude documenting itself wasn't just a neat trick. It was a preview of what's coming. Software that understands itself. Systems that enhance their own capabilities. Products that run better without us.

I’m hiring 3-5 people (in person in San Francisco) to build the platform that runs Rocketable's portfolio.

The job isn't about working on individual products. It's about building the systems that will autonomously operate, improve, and grow an entire portfolio of SaaS products.

Want to work at the absolute frontier of applied AI? Where there are no org charts, data silos, or corporate politics blocking you from exploring the full potential of model capabilities?

This is your chance.

The takeoff has started. The only question is whether you're on the rocket or watching from the ground.

Ready? Apply here to join the Rocketable team.