Devin maker Cognition raises $2B at $48B valuation
Cognition, the startup behind the AI coding assistant Devin, closed a $2 billion funding round at a $48 billion valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Accel, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and Avenir.
The raise comes just four months after Cognition’s previous round, which valued the company at $26 billion. In that same window, its annualized run-rate revenue grew from $492 million to $900 million. The company is projected to reach $4 billion to $5 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026, according to The Information.
The Cursor Comparison
The number that stands out is the revenue multiple. Cursor was in talks in April to raise at a $50 billion valuation when its annualized revenue had already surpassed $2 billion. Cognition’s current $48 billion valuation is built on roughly half that revenue, which means it commands a higher multiple than Cursor did before SpaceX acquired it for $60 billion.
Cursor’s sale to SpaceX was driven largely by severe compute constraints, according to investors familiar with its finances. Whether Cognition faces a similar ceiling is an open question.
The Burn Problem
Growth at this scale is not cheap. Cognition leases an Nvidia server cluster that costs hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Total cash burn could hit $800 million this year, according to The Information.
To reduce that burn over time, Cognition is training its own model based on open-source alternatives, following the same path Cursor took before its acquisition. The goal is to cut reliance on paid third-party models from OpenAI and Anthropic and move closer to breakeven.
Who’s Using It
Cognition was founded in 2024 by Scott Wu. Enterprise customers include Mercedes-Benz, NASA, Goldman Sachs, and Citi. The fact that a16z, which backed Cursor and profited from its SpaceX sale, is now leading a round in a direct Cursor competitor signals continued VC conviction that AI coding is not a single-winner market.
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