COGNITION EYES $40BN VALUATION IN NEW FUNDING ROUND

Cognition, the artificial intelligence coding company, is in early talks with investors about a new funding round that could value the business at $40 billion or more, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. The potential round would represent a valuation increase of more than 50 per cent from the company's May funding at $26 billion. Cognition may ultimately decide not to raise capital or to seek different terms, the sources said.

The new round would follow rapid growth in Cognition's annualised revenue run rate, which sources said now stands at approximately $1 billion — roughly double the figure at the time of the May raise. Any new round would be expected to bring in more than $1 billion in capital. Cognition, founded in 2023, developed Devin, an AI agent designed to perform engineering work independently, including reading codebases, drafting plans, writing code, running tests and fixing errors. The company's existing investors include General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Pear VC, 8VC and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.

A valuation at $40 billion or above would place Cognition ahead of several peers on private markets. Cursor, another AI coding company, had been valued at $29.3 billion before agreeing to be acquired by SpaceX, a deal expected to close imminently. Cursor had previously been in talks to raise capital at a $50 billion valuation in March, after achieving $2 billion in annualised revenue the month before.