Cognition says its run rate crossed $1 billion, two years after Devin’s stood at $1 million
It's Saturday, September twenty-sixth. Cognition says its annualized run rate has crossed one billion dollars. A run rate takes a recent stretch of sales and scales it up to a full year. Cognition makes Devin, an AI agent that writes code for engineers. Two years ago, Devin's run rate was one million dollars. Plus, Ando raises twenty million dollars, PicoJool raises twenty-seven and a half million dollars, and Databricks buys Row Zero.
Cognition’s September 25 post announces $1 billion in annualized run rate
Cognition announced the billion in a short post on Friday, September twenty-fifth. Cognition started in January twenty twenty-four. The post names GE Aerospace, Rivian, Rohlik and Exa among the companies that use Devin. An engineer hands Devin a task, and Devin writes the code.
Seventeen days earlier, Cognition raised over $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation
On September eighth, Cognition said it had raised over two billion dollars from investors. That round valued the whole company at forty-eight billion dollars. Andreessen Horowitz and Accel led it. In the same post, Cognition put its run rate at almost nine hundred million dollars.
Cognition’s $1 billion run rate is its current pace of sales, stretched to a full year
A billion-dollar run rate is easy to hear as a billion dollars collected over the past year. A run rate works differently. A company takes its sales over a recent stretch, say one month, and multiplies that out to twelve months. The run rate tells you how fast money is coming in right now. Cognition does not say which stretch of sales it uses.
One step of Cognition’s climb to $1 billion was a company it bought
Cognition's own posts show how the run rate got here, in three steps. Step one, Devin grew on its own. Devin's run rate went from one million dollars in September twenty twenty-four to seventy-three million dollars in June twenty twenty-five. Step two, Cognition bought a company. In July twenty twenty-five, Cognition bought Windsurf. Windsurf made a code editor, the app where programmers write and change their code. Windsurf brought eighty-two million dollars of run rate with it. Cognition says the deal more than doubled Cognition's run rate. Step three, the combined company kept growing. Cognition put its run rate at four hundred and ninety-two million dollars in May twenty twenty-six, over five hundred million dollars in July, almost nine hundred million dollars in early September, and a billion dollars on September twenty-fifth.
Cognition’s valuation nearly doubled to $48 billion at about 53 times its run rate
Now put Cognition's last two funding rounds next to its run rate. In May, the round valued Cognition at twenty-six billion dollars, with a run rate of four hundred and ninety-two million dollars. In September, the valuation was forty-eight billion dollars, with a run rate of almost nine hundred million dollars. Divide each valuation by its run rate, and both come out at about fifty-three times. The valuation nearly doubled in just over three months. Over the same stretch, investors kept paying about fifty-three dollars for each dollar of run rate.
Cognition had spent under $20 million net when it raised over $400 million in 2025
Every number on the tape comes from Cognition's own posts. A year ago, in September twenty twenty-five, Cognition raised over four hundred million dollars at a valuation of ten point two billion dollars, led by Founders Fund. In that post, Cognition said it had spent under twenty million dollars more than it took in, across its whole history. Windsurf brought over three hundred and fifty big-company customers into Cognition. And in May, Cognition said Devin commits eighty-nine percent of the code Cognition's own engineers commit, meaning the code they add to the company's software. In December, that share was thirteen percent.
Ando raised $20 million for a team chat app where AI agents sit in the channels
Ando makes a messaging app for teams that work alongside AI agents. Ando says people and agents post in the same channels and threads, and teams can bring agents such as Codex and Claude. Ando announced twenty million dollars in funding on September twenty-fourth.
PicoJool raised $27.5 million to make lasers that link machines in AI data centers
PicoJool makes tiny lasers that send data as light between machines in AI data centers. PicoJool raised a twenty-seven and a half million dollar Series A, an early funding round, on September twenty-fourth. The investment firm Socratic Partners led it, and the trading firm Hudson River Trading joined.
Databricks bought Row Zero to put a spreadsheet inside its Genie assistant
Databricks sells software that stores and analyzes company data. On September twenty-fourth, Databricks said it bought Row Zero, a spreadsheet that works directly on a company's live data. Row Zero will become part of Genie, the Databricks AI assistant that answers business questions. Databricks gave no price for the deal.
Cognition has posted a new run-rate figure four times since May
File away Cognition's next run-rate post. Since May, Cognition has shared a run-rate figure with each of its two funding rounds, on the Windsurf deal's first anniversary in July, and again on September twenty-fifth. When the next number lands, check whether Cognition bought any of it. Windsurf is the only deal where Cognition has published the run rate it bought.
Sources for Saturday, September 26
The next edition of The Wire is Sunday morning.
