Background
<cite index="5-9">Cognition was founded in 2023 and gained widespread attention after unveiling Devin in 2024 as what it described as an AI software engineer capable of independently handling complex coding assignments.</cite> <cite index="21-5">Entrepreneurs Scott Wu, Steven Hao, and Walden Yan co-founded the firm.</cite> <cite index="11-7">Unlike conventional code-completion tools, Devin analyzes entire repositories, builds contextual understanding, and operates independently within containerized development environments to write, test, and deploy code.</cite>
The Proposed Round
<cite index="24-1,24-2">Cognition AI Inc. is in early talks with investors for a new funding round that may boost the coding startup's valuation by more than 50% to at least $40 billion, people familiar with the matter said.</cite> <cite index="23-6">Cognition would be expected to raise over $1 billion in the round, one of the people said.</cite> <cite index="23-7">The company may still decide not to raise capital, or seek financing with different terms, the people said.</cite>
Valuation Trajectory
The proposed $40 billion figure would represent a dramatic compression of fundraising timelines. <cite index="10-1,10-2,10-3">Cognition raised more than $1 billion at a $25 billion pre-money valuation ($26 billion post-money) in May 2026—a major leap from its $10.2 billion post-money valuation when it closed a $400 million funding round just eight months earlier in September 2025.</cite> <cite index="6-3,6-4">Venture firms Lux Capital, General Catalyst, and 8VC co-led the May financing, with other investors including Ribbit Capital, Atreides Management LP, and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund also participating.</cite>
Revenue Growth
Revenue velocity is the central justification for the escalating valuation. <cite index="16-2">Before acquiring Windsurf, Cognition's Devin Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) grew from $1 million ARR in September 2024 to $73 million ARR in June 2025, as usage increased exponentially.</cite> <cite index="16-6">The company's acquisition of Windsurf more than doubled its ARR.</cite> <cite index="15-9">Cognition's revenue run rate subsequently grew from $37 million in May 2025 to $492 million at the time of its Series D close</cite>—a 13-fold increase in twelve months. <cite index="7-5">The company's annualized revenue run rate is now approaching $1 billion, roughly double the figure the firm posted during its previous financing.</cite>
The Windsurf Acquisition and Product Suite
<cite index="17-3">In July 2025, Cognition acquired Windsurf (formerly Codeium), adding an AI-native Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and $82 million in ARR.</cite> <cite index="16-8,16-9">Today, the two main forms of AI coding tools are IDEs and agents. Engineers naturally want both: the IDE for when they want to make each decision themselves with AI assistance, and agents to delegate complete tasks asynchronously.</cite> <cite index="11-9">In October 2025, Cognition launched SWE-1.5, a frontier-size coding model served via Cerebras at up to 950 tokens per second, and made it available in Windsurf.</cite>
Enterprise Adoption
<cite index="25-4">At the time of the May 2026 raise, co-founder Scott Wu told reporters that Cognition had reached a $492 million annualized revenue run rate, with enterprise usage of Devin growing 50% month-over-month over the preceding six months.</cite> <cite index="17-5">Enterprise customers include Goldman Sachs, Citi, Dell, Cisco, Palantir, Mercedes-Benz, and the US military.</cite> <cite index="12-6">Cognition has also partnered with Infosys to deploy Devin across Infosys' internal engineering operations and global client engagements.</cite>
Model Strategy
<cite index="15-13,15-14,15-15,15-16">Cognition runs Devin on a mix of its own proprietary models and models from OpenAI and Anthropic. CEO Wu framed this as a strategic advantage, arguing that as the model layer grows more competitive, working with a combination of Large Language Models (LLMs) produces better results than relying on any single provider. Cognition routes customers to the best tools for their specific needs, positioning itself as an orchestration layer rather than a model company.</cite>
Capital Efficiency
<cite index="16-5">Cognition's growth remained efficient throughout, with total net burn under $20 million across the company's entire history</cite> through September 2025. <cite index="15-7">The company has now raised more than $2.5 billion in total funding.</cite> The pending round, if completed at the reported terms, would push Cognition's total capital raised past $3.5 billion and establish it among the highest-valued private AI companies globally.