Join Forward-thinking Leaders
Elevate your expertise with tech insights, startup breakthroughs, and leadership intelligence curated for your priorities.
OpenAI Is Set to Acquire Windsurf for $3 Billion
OpenAI is all set to acquire Windsurf, formerly Codeium, an AI assistant coding platform, for $3 billion- the biggest deal to date. Let’s see how this bold acquisition impacts the tech world.
Summary:
1. OpenAI has acquired Codeium, an AI assistant coding platform, for $3 billion, aiming to compete in the growing market of AI-powered coding assistants.
2. Codeium, which was first introduced in 2021 as Exafunction, has raised over $240 million in investment and plans to raise a fresh round of funding valued at $3 billion.
3. The AI-powered assistant, was recently in talks with Kleiner Perkins and general marketing leaders to secure funding at a $3 billion valuation. It has recently completed a $40 billion fundraising round led by SoftBank Group Corp., valuing the business at $300 billion.
OpenAI will acquire Codeium, an AI assistant coding platform, for $3 billion. This unique collaboration will help OpenAI to compete in the growing market of AI-powered coding assistants. The tools can create code from raw language instructions, which means that coding becomes easier, and you don’t always need a coder to fulfill your basic coding requirements.
According to sources, this acquisition deal is the largest collaboration to date.
While OpenAI and Windsurf have refused to comment on this matter, some people anonymously told me that the deal has not been done yet.
This collaboration will help OpenAI make an impact in the world of AI-powered coding assistants.
Windsurf, the AI coding assistant, formerly known as Exafunction Inc., was recently in talks with Kleiner Perkins and general marketing leaders to secure funding at a $3 billion valuation. Last year, the company was estimated at $1.25 billion in a deal led by other marketing leaders.
Its competitors, Anthropic and Microsoft Corp., both have GitHub, provide AI tools for coders or programmers. The shareholders also invested money into a new stream of startups offering similar tools, including Anysphere, the startup behind the cursor.
It has just wrapped up a $40 billion fundraising round led by SoftBank Group Corp., valuing the business at $300 billion. It also announced on Monday that it was abandoning its intentions to relaunch as a conventional commercial company in response to criticism from the public.
What is Windsurf?
The AI coding assistant was first introduced in 2021 as Exafunction, a GPU optimisation platform founded by MIT graduates Varun Mohan and Dogulas Chen.
Given the development of generative AI, the business shifted its focus to developing a coding platform called Codeium, which became what is now known as Codeium.
According to sources, the company has raised more than $240 million in investment. While the firm is presently valued at $1.25 billion, it reported earlier this year that Windsurf plans to raise a fresh round of funding valued at $3 billion.
The company also announced changes to its free tier. Cascade can now be utilized in writing mode. Users receive 5-25 Cascade prompt credits monthly, and both Fast Tab and Cascade Base are available without restrictions.
Having said that, it has shifted its efforts towards adding powerful coding tools to its platforms for consumers. It has been stated that its recently launched o3 and o4-mini models outperform previous versions in benchmark tests such as Codeforces competition code, with 20% fewer serious errors than OpenAI o1, as vetted by external experts.
Plus, Aider’s polyglot coding leaderboard sets o3 at the top in terms of reliability. While the leaderboard shows higher prices than Gemini, the o4-mini is still less expensive than the Claude 3.7 Sonnet and o1.
