Cognition Acquires AI Coding Startup Windsurf

Cognition Acquires Windsurf

Cognition, the startup behind the AI coding agent Devin, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AI coding startup Windsurf. The announcement comes just days after Google hired away Windsurf’s CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and research leaders in a deal that left much of the startup’s team behind.

The frenzy around Windsurf represents a new peak in the wild race to develop AI coding tools, specifically the AI-powered integrated development environments (IDEs) that Cursor and Windsurf offer. Cognition says it’s acquiring Windsurf’s IP and product, which include its AI-powered IDE, alongside all of the employees who were not hired by Google.

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’s user base reached at least 350 enterprise customers and “hundreds of thousands” of daily active users.

In the near term, Windsurf’s team will continue working on its AI-powered IDE, while Cognition works on its AI coding agent, Devin. Eventually, Cognition says it will integrate Windsurf’s IP and capabilities into its own products. Cognition notes in its press release that Windsurf will now have full access to Claude AI models once again.

Cognition President Russell Kaplan indicated 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.

Cognition notes in its blog post that 100% of Windsurf employees will participate financially in this deal and have vesting cliffs waived for their work to date. With the addition of Windsurf’s talent and IP, Cognition may have a supercharged startup to compete with giants in the AI coding space, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cursor.