In just 4 months, AI coding assistant Cursor raised another $100M at a $2.5B valuation led by Thrive, sources say

Startups

Anysphere, the developer of AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, raised $100 million Series B at a post-money valuation of $2.6 billion, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. The round is being led by returning investor Thrive Capital, the person said. 

This new funding comes just four months after Anysphere raised its $60 million Series A at a $400 million valuation from Thrive and Andreessen Horrowitz. A16Z also participated in the latest round, but didn’t co-lead it this time.

Thrive declined comment and the company and a16z have not responded to our request for comment.

Last month, TechCrunch reported that investors, including Index Ventures and Benchmark, were falling over themselves for a chance to back the company. But apparently, Anysphere is growing so fast, that the existing VC couldn’t pass up the opportunity to double down on the bet, even if it took a staggering 6.5 times leap in valuation over a round that was completed just a few months ago. The interest in backing this company, and who would win the deal, has become widely watched by Valley insiders, and was flagged by an X account called Arfur Rock.

The market for AI-powered coding assistants is crowded with options such as Augment, Codeium, Magic, and Poolside, as it is one of areas where AI has found a solid, revenue-generating lane. None of these tools are as popular with developers as Cursor, though they are also chasing Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, which just raised the stakes by launching a free version. 

Still, Anysphere’s revenue has grown from $4 million annualized recurring revenue (ARR) in April to $4 million a month in October, sources previously told TechCrunch. That means the company’s ARR in October was $48 million, implying that the latest round valued Anysphere at over 50 times its revenue. (The final deal valuation multiple was likely slightly lower, however, if the company’s fast revenue growth continued.)

Cursor offers developers a freemium model with tiered pricing. After a two-week free trial, the company converts users to paying customers who pay either $20 for a pro-offering or $40 a month for a business subscription designed for larger teams and organizations. Companies that use Cursor include OpenAI, Midjourney, Perplexity, Replicate, Shopify and Instacart.

Anysphere was co-founded in 2022 by Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark, and Aman Sanger while they were students at MIT. Last year, it went through OpenAI’s accelerator, and raised its seed funding led by OpenAI Startup Fund.    

Other investors in the company include venture firm Neo, Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi. 

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