Designing user interfaces is traditionally a slow, fragmented process, burdened by too many tools, too much back-and-forth, and not enough automation, especially for small businesses and early entrepreneurs.
But a Ukrainian-founded and Berlin-based startup wants to change this.
Banani AI has developed an AI copilot built specifically for UI design that is designed to simplify and accelerate the process of UI (user interface) design.
By converting text inputs into functional designs, it streamlines workflows for professionals across industries, adapting to individual design systems, stylistic preferences, and even a user’s unique tone of voice and references.
I spoke to co-founder Vlad Solomakha to learn more.
Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, Solomakha has been a designer and has worked on different products since he was a teenager.
“I was lucky to find my passion early, around age 12, building websites and developing mobile games. Back then, I didn’t even realise that some of the things I was doing could become a career. It was all just natural exploration.”
At 18, he joined one of the most successful Ukrainian product companies, Preply, which allowed him to design a large part of the product. He eventually moved into product management, launching things like the company's first mobile app.
“It was like a boot camp on how products are built at scale,” he recalls.
He later started his own company and became really interested in how AI could change the way products are designed — everything from user flows to collecting user insights. That curiosity, shared with Vova Parkhomchuk – a friend and like-minded product engineer – led them to co-found Banani AI..
Banani aims to help anyone design beautiful, user-friendly products.
Users can input a basic idea, and Banani will generate a prototype.
It also supports use without prompting because, according to Solomakha, “prompt engineering is a real barrier for many people.”
“So we’ve designed it so you can just click on elements and we’ll predict the next step in the user flow automatically.”
We don’t want users spending hours writing prompts. Banani should work in the background —understanding your users and your product priorities, and suggesting design ideas directly in tools like Slack.”
Users are primarily small to medium companies that lack dedicated design resources or even product managers (PMs). The startup also sees strong usage from early-stage founders, especially solopreneurs, who might otherwise use tools like Webflow or Bubble, but find prototyping in those tools can be slow or require coding skills.
According to Solomakha:
“We help them remove that bottleneck and empower product managers or early-stage founders to create prototypes quickly.
It’s about understanding users, knowing what they need, and using data and research to improve products.”
Its most common use cases are redesigning onboarding flows, prototyping new ideas and building SaaS apps with Banani.
Solomakha shared:
“We recently had a call with a mid-size company building a custom CRM. The founder used Banani to prototype a huge flow without needing to involve a designer, saving weeks of back-and-forth.”
Others are founders exploring new product ideas such as mobile apps. They use Banani to quickly visualise onboarding flows, main screens, and the user experience.
The product offering is SaaS-based, with a basic subscription plan right now.
Solomakha shared that the brand already has some power users — one person generated over a thousand designs! So there’s definitely demand.
I wanted to understand what designers, who might traditionally be employed by small companies for these tasks, would think of Banani.
Solomakha admits that designers can be protective of their craft and cautious about AI tools.
“But we’re seeing more using Banani as a partner, especially for structural tasks or quick iterations. Originally, we built it for designers, but we saw stronger feedback from non-designers, so we adjusted.”
Designers will always be needed as user advocates, synthesising research and transforming insights into effective experiences. We see Banani as transforming roles, not replacing them.”
Solomakha predicts that in 5 to 10 years, roles like product managers and designers will overlap more, with AI handling parts of both.
Banani also avoids duplication and design inconsistency through the use of AI to spot patterns, and link user flows. The company is exploring permissions and structuring flows so everyone can ideate, but approvals still go through a PM or designer.
“The goal is to democratise product input without chaos.”
Currently the company is in public alpha. It recently crossed 14,000 monthly active users and nearly 350,000 designs generated since its October launch.
Banani recently raised €850,000 pre-seed round co-led by Specialist.vc and Inovo.vc and according to Solomakha, “We also have great angels, including the first designer at WhatsApp and former employees of Canva. It was a long process — hundreds of calls — but in the end, we found partners who really believe in our vision and understand the product.”
Banani AI was also one of 38 Ukrainian startups awarded funding by the Seeds of Bravery consortium, an EU-funded initiative under the European Innovation Council (EIC) aimed at supporting Ukrainian tech startups.
In terms of next steps, Banani wants to become the central product-design hub for teams. While today it helps with early-stage design, it also building layers to connect user insights, generate better flows, and — eventually — build a true design brain for companies.
Lead image: Banani AI co-founders. Photo: uncredited.
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