Framer: The $2B AI Website Builder That Feels Like a “Modern Flash”

(6 minutes)

Hi 👋, this is the Today in AI Newsletter: The weekly newsletter bringing you one step closer to building your own startup.

We analyze a cool, industry-shaping AI startup every week, with a full breakdown of what they do, how they make money, how much they’ve raised, and the opportunity ahead.

Let’s get to the good stuff in this email:

• ⚡This startup helps you publish websites directly from a design canvas - built on React.

• 💸 They just hit ~$50M ARR in July 2025, and on track to hit $100M ARR by EoY

• 💰They were just valued at ~$2B with a team of just ~45 people

So what’s the startup and who are the founders behind it? Here’s the story of Framer 📈

Framer was founded in 2014 by Koen Bok and Jorn Van Dijk with the vision to fix the broken workflow of designing in Figma then painstakingly rebuilding in Webflow. With Framer, you design → publish from a single React-powered canvas.

In short, Framer lets designers create professional, high-performance, SEO-optimized websites without code.

What it does (and why it clicks) 🤖⚙️

Open Framer and you’re on a true design canvas - modern layout, styling, and typography built in - with animations and live collaboration that feel native. 🖼️

 SEO and performance come baked in, so publishing globally is a one-click move. 🌍

When content grows, you shape a CMS around your team, then reuse real production components and assets.

You can even type a prompt and Framer’s AI drafts pages, copy, imagery, and styles from a library of ~100 pre-designed sections - delivering a reliable “7/10 first pass” you can polish fast.  ✨

Framer also provides localization for multi-language sites and a CMS API, with room for AI auto-translation. 🌐

The platform also has a plugin marketplace where creators sell full component collections, with a goal of 100–150 high-quality plugins. 🔌

Need automation services? Today in AI can help… 🚀

Before we get back into Framer’s story, I need your help.

We’ve been diving deeper into AI tools like n8n and Zapier - and I’d like to start helping automate parts of your workflows! 🤖 

Think: cutting out repetitive tasks, stitching together apps you already use, generating you 50%+ more revenue, and saving you hours every week. 📈 

But here’s the thing: we want to build automations you actually need. That’s why we’ve set up a quick form where you can tell us what you’d love to see automated.

👉 [Fill out the form here]

We’ll take your input, share back some of the most useful automations, and maybe even build a few live in the newsletter.

Now, let’s get back to the story.

Backstory 👀

The story starts in 2006, when Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk started Sofa, a studio known for award-winning Mac apps and work for TomTom, Mozilla, and Nike.

In 2011, Facebook bought Sofa; they moved to Menlo Park, reported to Mark Zuckerberg. Jorn worked on mobile apps and Photos, Koen on Messages, Ads, and Video. 

By late 2013, they left to chase a problem for 10–20 years: helping companies become digital-first and product-led. 🌟

They built an MVP of Framer in 3–4 months, sold it (which they now see as a mistake) for a $40 lifetime license, and saw it spread to designers at Dropbox, Twitter, Microsoft, and Amazon. 🚀

More releases came - Framer Classic, then Framer X, and later Framer Web - until they realized the bet that high-fidelity interactive prototypes would replace static design did not stick.

Most teams kept using low-fi (or no) prototyping, growth flattened, and they were ready for a bigger pivot. 📉

Cue the “Make It or Break It” moment after their Series B in 2018. They pivoted. 

Some teammates left. Koen & Jorn swapped roles - Koen leaned into product, Jorn took commercial - and a small team sprinted to find PMF in a new category: websites.

Who they are (the human details) 👱 :

✅ Jorn (sometimes cited as CTO, elsewhere as “CE-YO”/CEO) started in graphic design, obsessed with OS X Aqua aesthetics - then shifted from pure aesthetics to solving real problems that drive business results. 

He invests via Festina and uses ChatGPT ~30 min daily.

✅ Koen calls himself “half designer, half programmer, and a little bit of an entrepreneur.” He co-runs Festina with Jorn.

Early Beginnings 🐣

The pivot wasn’t random:

✅ They saw users prototyping websites in Framer already.

✅ They personally hated the Figma → Webflow rebuild.

✅ The product was already React-first, so the tech path was clear.

May 2022: Framer launches the website builder publicly. Designers flock. 💥

The UX feels familiar (Figma-like), but now you can hit Publish and get fast, SEO-friendly sites with global reach.