Boss of San Francisco-based AI coding startup mocks “monoculture” Silicon Valley, as opens London office

The boss of US AI coding startup Replit yesterday said it could hire up to 100 staff in London by early next year, as it opened its first overseas office in the capital.

Amjad Masad, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-headquartered Replit, also gently mocked Silicon Valley’s “monoculture”, which he contrasted with London’s “diversity”, as he gave a speech at the London launch event of its European hub, which London mayor Sadiq Khan also spoke at.

Replit is the latest US startup and tech company to open or expand its presence in London's King's Cross, joining the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, along with several US startups, which are located near Isomorphic Labs, Meta and Wayve.

Replit now has around 20 staff in London, hired in just a few weeks, which it plans to use as a hub for its European operations, but Masad said this could reach 100 early next year, albeit depending on AI adoption.

To date, it has hired across sales, support and engineering. It also plans to open offices in Tokyo and New York.

Speaking at the office opening, Masad said: “I love San Francisco. Silicon Valley is obviously a place that has given me a lot. But there is like one major downside, which is it’s a bit of a monoculture. Everyone speaks the same language. You can never escape tech, it's endless. When I come to London, I meet artists, I meet people in finance, I meet filmmakers. It’s really amazing how diverse the community is here.”

Masad also said that a diverse workforce and diverse working environment helped generate more diverse ideas.

Khan claimed that Europe’s cultural, technology, financial and political capitals were all located in London, which, he said, was a ”massive, massive advantage for somebody thinking about starting up, scaling up or expanding AI”.

Commenting more broadly on government’s role relating to AI, Masad said: “One of the first things is maintaining a level playing field. We don’t want to see what happened in the last generation of platforms happen again, meaning we don’t want just two or three companies controlling all of AI. We want open source AI, we want accessible AI.”

Founded 10 years ago, Replit is one of the leaders in vibecoding, the process in which non-coders and developers build software using AI.

It also has an AI agent which can deploy software applications. It says it has more than 60m users worldwide, with users at 85 per cent of the Fortune 500. Its enterprise customers include PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ernst & Young, and Mercedes-Benz.

In March this year, it raised $400 million in funding, in a consortium that included Databricks Ventures, Okta Ventures, Shaquille O’Neal, Y Combinator and others, at a $9bn valuation.