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§ Private Profile · San Francisco, CA, USA
Develops Devin, the first fully autonomous AI software engineering agent that plans, executes, and validates coding tasks for enterprise customers.
Based in San Francisco, California, Cognition develops Devin, an autonomous artificial intelligence software engineering agent designed to independently plan, execute, and validate complex multi-step coding tasks. The venture-backed startup recently reached a $10.2 billion valuation after securing over $400 million in a September 2025 funding round, bringing its total capital raised to more than $421 million. Following the strategic acquisition of the software firm Windsurf, the company experienced rapid financial growth, expanding its annual recurring revenue from $1 million in late 2024 to over $73 million by June 2025. Cognition is backed by prominent investors including Founders Fund and Lux Capital, and provides its enterprise engineering tools to major corporate clients such as Goldman Sachs, Dell, and Palantir. The company was founded in November 2023 by Scott Wu, Steven Hao, and Walden Yan.
Cognition has raised $1.3B across 5 funding rounds.
Key people at Cognition.
Cognition was founded in 2023 by Steven Hao (Co-Founder) and Walden Yan (Co-Founder) and Scott Wu (Co-Founder).
Cognition has raised $1.3B in total across 5 funding rounds.
Cognition has raised $1.3B across 5 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $400.0M Other Equity in September 2025.
Key people at Cognition.
Cognition AI, Inc. (also known as Cognition Labs) is a San Francisco-based applied AI lab founded in 2023, specializing in AI software agents to transform software engineering.[1][2][5] Its flagship product, Devin, is an autonomous AI coding agent that plans, executes, debugs, and deploys complex engineering tasks in a sandboxed environment with tools like a Linux shell, code editor, and browser, serving ambitious engineering teams at companies such as Nubank, Ramp, OpenSea, Microsoft, and Gumroad.[3][4] Devin solves the problem of developer bottlenecks by automating routine work, boosting productivity, and enabling focus on high-level challenges, with strong growth evidenced by $196 million in funding (including a $175 million Series A extension in 2024 valuing it at $2 billion and a Series B in 2025 reaching $4 billion valuation).[1][2]
Cognition was founded in August or November 2023 by Scott Wu (CEO), Steven Hao (CTO), and Walden Yan (CPO), all competitive programming prodigies with gold medals from the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI)—collectively earning 10 golds—and experience at top AI firms like Google DeepMind, Scale AI, Cursor, Waymo, and Nuro.[1][2][3][4][5] Initially focused on cryptocurrency, the team pivoted to AI amid the post-ChatGPT boom in Silicon Valley.[2] Early traction came with a March 2024 demo of Devin AI, hailed as the world's first AI software engineer, followed by rapid funding from Peter Thiel's Founders Fund ($21 million Series A) and a Microsoft Azure partnership in May 2024.[1][2]
Cognition rides the AI agent wave in software development, capitalizing on exploding demand for developer tools amid talent shortages and the shift from LLMs to autonomous systems post-ChatGPT.[2][4] Timing is ideal: 2024-2025 saw unicorn status and $4B valuation as investor hype for "fully autonomous agents" surged, fueled by market forces like rising software complexity and productivity mandates in tech.[1][4] It influences the ecosystem by setting benchmarks for AI engineers—pressuring incumbents like Poolside and accelerating adoption at scale-ups—while sparking debates on job impacts, yet proving AI's role in amplifying human engineers.[2][3][4]
Cognition's compact, elite team and Devin’s technical edge position it to dominate AI-driven dev tools, with Devin 2.0 signaling multi-agent evolution.[2][4] Next steps likely include enterprise expansions, Global 2000 wins, and tackling Devin’s limits in proprietary codebases amid competition.[4] Trends like agentic AI and foundation model advances will propel growth, potentially evolving Cognition into a cornerstone of automated engineering—transforming "Cognition is a technology company" into the understatement of the AI era as it redefines software creation.[1][5]
Cognition was founded in 2023 by Steven Hao (Co-Founder) and Walden Yan (Co-Founder) and Scott Wu (Co-Founder).
Cognition has raised $1.3B in total across 5 funding rounds.
Cognition's investors include Founders Fund, Elad Gil, Joe Lonsdale, Definition Capital, Lux Capital, Swish Ventures, Alkeon Capital, Conviction Partners, Gaingels, Indeed.com, LGF, Otherwise Fund.
