The Finimize Daily Brief
“Vibe Coding” Startup Lovable Landed $330 Million, And Japan Pushed Interest Rates To Their Highest In 30 Years
20 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, I'm Lana with your Daily Brief for Saturday, December 20th. Coming up, vibe-coding startup Lovable put investors under its spell, landing $330 million at a $6.6 billion valuation. And Japan took it back to the 90s, pushing interest rates to their highest in 30 years. We'll also check in with Carl to get his answers to your burning questions.
More on the way, but first, a word from Guy at Finimize HQ.
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Lovable, the two-year-old Swedish AI startup, just pulled in $330 million at a $6.6 billion valuation, as investors fell hard for its so-called vibe coding. The concept behind Lovable is simple.
Chapter 2: What is the significance of Lovable's $330 million funding?
It's an AI-powered app builder that operates in plain English. So if you've got an idea for an app or website, you can just describe what you want, and the platform will generate a working version. It takes most of the coding out of development, and because anyone now can create a product in minutes, backers are seeing a path to the mass market.
That's why heavyweight investors like CapitalG and Menlo are piling in, alongside Nvidia, Salesforce, and Deutsche Telekom's Venture Arms. Lovable plans to use the funding to deepen its integrations with everyday workplace tools, and to improve its collaboration and governance features for businesses. AI makes it easy to spin up smooth demos and eye-catching prototypes.
But what plays well in a pitch deck or hackathon often falls apart inside big firms, where security, compliance, integration, and coordination matters more than sheer speed. So for AI to significantly improve productivity, the tech must be successfully embedded through entire workflows. That's the next test for these tools, whether they actually move the needle inside the workplace.
Vibe coding isn't the only new cool thing. Vibe trading, essentially using AI to help develop trading strategies, is becoming all the rage. And prediction markets, platforms where you trade contracts on real-world events rather than company shares, slot neatly into that shift. Often hosted on slick apps, they let you bet on almost anything, quickly and easily.
The appeal is obvious, fast feedback, yes or no outcomes, and the occasional buzz of being right. Thing is, this gamification can make money feel less real, which can encourage more frequent or riskier trades. Before we dive into the next story, it's time for our daily check-in with Carl. You've got questions, he's got answers. Carl, what have you got for us?
Yes, we have a question from Eleanor in San Francisco who asks, why does a stock drop sometimes even after strong earnings? Yes, this is something fundamental, but often forgotten because markets don't react to news. They react to expectations. If investors were hoping for exceptional results, merely good can disappoint. Prices reflect what people thought would happen, not what just happened.
That's why buy the rumor, sell the news moves are so common. It feels illogical, but it's expectation math at work.
Thanks, Carl. Next up. Japan's central bank just raised interest rates to their highest level since 1995 and made it clear that this isn't a one-off bout of nostalgia. The Bank of Japan, BOJ, lifted its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage points to 0.75% in a unanimous and fully expected decision, one that nudges the country's monetary policy further away from decades of ultra-easy money.
Even so, officials called rates significantly low and pointed to a future sweet spot between 1% and 2.5%. That's a clear hint that there's room and intent to keep hiking if the economy holds up. This keeps Japan as an outlier.
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