Instinct Raises $1 Billion at $10 Billion Valuation

by Dee Miller

One of the hottest names in consumer AI has just become a $10 billion company.

Instinct has raised $1 billion in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Coatue, valuing the personal AI agent startup at $10 billion.

The speed of its rise is the standout part. Just last month, Instinct raised $250 million at a $2.5 billion valuation, meaning its valuation has effectively quadrupled in a matter of weeks. Including previous rounds, the company has now raised around $1.35 billion.

Founded by 23-year-old Noah Shinn, Instinct is building a personal AI assistant designed to actually do things for you. Instead of opening another app, users can simply text or call Instinct and ask it to book restaurants, order groceries, cancel subscriptions, organise trips or handle other everyday tasks.

The product is still in early access, but it has already built serious momentum. Recent additions include Instinct Concierge, which handles more complicated requests such as making phone calls and securing difficult bookings, alongside location sharing and technology that lets different users' Instinct agents coordinate with each other.

The funding also arrives as the race to build the dominant personal AI agent accelerates. Meta recently launched Muse, a product with a very similar ambition: moving AI beyond answering questions and towards completing real-world tasks on a user's behalf.

For Instinct, the new round gives a relatively young startup an enormous war chest to scale infrastructure, open the product to more users and compete with some of the biggest technology companies in the world.

A month ago Instinct was worth $2.5 billion. Today it is worth $10 billion.

That might be one of the clearest signs yet of how quickly the battle for the personal AI assistant is heating up.