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Cognition<\/a>, the startup behind the viral AI coding agent Devin<\/a>, announced in a blog post<\/a> on Monday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AI coding startup<\/a> Windsurf<\/a>.<\/p>\n The announcement comes just days after Google hired away Windsurf\u2019s CEO<\/a> Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and research leaders in a $2.4 billion reverse-acquihire that left much of the startup\u2019s 250-person team behind. Google\u2019s deal occurred just hours after OpenAI\u2019s $3 billion offer to acquire Windsurf expired, clearing the way for the AI coding startup to explore other options. <\/p>\n The frenzy around Windsurf represents a new peak in the wild race to develop AI coding tools \u2014 specifically, the AI-powered integrated development environments (IDEs) that Cursor and Windsurf offer. In recent months, the businesses around AI-powered IDEs have skyrocketed, pushing Cursor\u2019s annualized recurring revenue (ARR) to $500 million. While Windsurf\u2019s business is smaller than Cursor\u2019s, it has achieved impressive growth in the last year, garnering interest from several larger companies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last 72 hours have been the wildest rollercoaster ride of my career,\u201d said Jeff Wang, Windsurf\u2019s former head of business, who was made interim CEO of the startup days ago after Google hired the startup\u2019s leaders, in a post<\/a> on LinkedIn. \u201cTo our new teammates at Cognition:\u00a0we at Windsurf feel incredibly lucky to be joining a team that shares our vision, our deep commitment to our users, and \u2013 most importantly \u2013 our values.\u201d<\/p>\n Cognition says it\u2019s acquiring Windsurf\u2019s IP and product, which include its AI-powered IDE, alongside all of the employees who were not hired by Google.<\/p>\n Cognition did not announce the price it acquired Windsurf for; however, the company says Windsurf reached $82 million in ARR, with enterprise ARR doubling quarter-over-quarter. Cognition says Windsurf\u2019s user base reached at least 350 enterprise customers and \u201chundreds of thousands\u201d of daily active users.<\/p>\n In the near term, Windsurf\u2019s team will continue working on its AI-powered IDE, while Cognition works on its AI coding agent, Devin, the companies said in a press release. Eventually, Cognition says it will integrate Windsurf\u2019s IP and capabilities into its own products.<\/p>\n TechCrunch reported in April that Windsurf\u2019s ARR had reached $100 million<\/a> at one point. However, Anthropic \u2014 which offers some of the most popular AI models for coding tasks \u2014 cut Windsurf\u2019s direct access to its Claude AI models in June, with Anthropic co-founder Jared Kaplan attributing the decision to rumors<\/a> that OpenAI, its largest competitor, was close to acquiring Windsurf. Several Windsurf customers told TechCrunch they switched to other services that offered Claude AI models<\/a>, such as Cursor, in light of the incident.<\/p>\n Cognition notes in its press release that Windsurf will now have full access to Claude AI models once again.<\/p>\n Over the weekend, The Information reported that Windsurf employees who had joined in the last year did not receive a payout in Google\u2019s billion-dollar reverse-acquihire<\/a>. That prompted many users on social media to scoff at the deal, which seemed to largely benefit investors and leaders at the startup. <\/p>\n Cognition President Russell Kaplan indicated in a post on X <\/a>that the Windsurf acquisition truly came together over the weekend, just hours after the Google deal was made public. He noted that the first call was made after 5pm on Friday, and that an agreement was signed Monday morning.<\/p>\n