AI coding startup Cognition is in talks to raise funding at a $40 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, less than three months after closing a $1 billion round at a $26 billion valuation in May.
The valuation would represent a 54 percent increase from the May raise. Cognition, which has built the Devin AI coding agent, closed its Series B in May 2026 at the $26 billion mark. The startup returned to the fundraising market in August.
Cognition was founded in 2023 by Walden and Dario Amodei's brother, Deuber Amodei, and others who previously worked in AI research. The company's Devin product competes with offerings from larger AI labs and specialized coding tools. Devin can read error messages, run tests, and deploy code to production, features that early adopters have tested in pilot programs.
The startup's fundraising pace mirrors broader venture capital dynamics in the AI agent space. Other agent builders have moved quickly from seed to Series A to Series B rounds as investors compete for ownership in companies with differentiated execution capabilities. A $40 billion valuation would place Cognition among the highest-valued AI startups founded after 2023, a cohort that includes other agent-focused firms.
Cognition would have raised $2 billion in total by closing a new round, giving it substantial runway to invest in model training, inference infrastructure, and engineering talent. The company's prior funding came from investors including Dustin Moskovitz's Anthropic, Google Ventures, and other prominent venture firms.
The 54 percent valuation step from May to August is steeper than typical venture progression. Most Series B rounds see companies valued at 1.5 to 2.5 times their prior round; Cognition's implied multiple sits outside that band. The jump occurred over three months, a compressed timeline for a $14 billion valuation increase.
If Cognition closes its new round at the stated valuation, the startup will have raised $2 billion in eight weeks. The number to watch is whether the company can announce enterprise customers or annual recurring revenue figures that justify the jump from $26 billion to $40 billion in three months.
