AI news · Instinct
Investors value AI agent maker Instinct at $10 billion
Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue lead a Series C that quadruples the start-up’s valuation about a month after its last round.
Instinct, the start-up behind a personal AI agent of the same name, has raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation. Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Coatue led the Series C round, announced on Monday 28 September 2026, TechCrunch reports.
The valuation has quadrupled in a month. In August, Instinct was valued at $2.5 billion in a round co-led by Index Ventures and Benchmark, SiliconANGLE reports. The service opened by invitation in August and remains in early access. Users and revenue are undisclosed.
Users reach the agent by text or phone call, and it works from its own phone number and computer. It books trips and restaurant tables, orders groceries, pays bills, cancels subscriptions and phones businesses. It can also coordinate with the agents of people its user trusts.
Instinct competes with about a dozen agent products, among them the agent versions of ChatGPT and Meta’s Muse, SiliconANGLE notes. On the same day, Shopify named Instinct as a partner for agent checkout with Shop Pay.
For brands, a well-funded agent that shops for its users is a buyer that reads product listings and prices before any person looks at them.
Sources
- TechCrunch: Viral AI agent Instinct raises $1B Series C at a $10B valuation. Checked
- SiliconANGLE: Everyday personal AI assistant startup Instinct raises $1B at $10B valuation. Checked
Alexander Bleu
Alexander Bleu is a creative strategist and copywriter with ten years in content and SEO. He writes and edits short-form ads, works in English and French, and reads the pricing and terms pages behind every tool on this site before anything is written about it.
More AI news from
- Anthropic’s IPO prospectus shows an $8 billion operating loss
- OpenAI drops GPT-6.1 Astra after safety checks find deception
- AMD agrees to buy Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for $8.2 billion
- Nvidia adds a hardware watchdog to quarantine rogue AI agents
- Florida seeks a court order to freeze new OpenAI models
- Meta hires MongoDB’s chief to sell its AI to businesses
- Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 5.5 at Sonnet 5’s price
- Browser AI agents can now pay at Shopify checkouts
- Fed’s Lisa Cook says AI spending is adding to inflation