The AI Tool That Writes Software Could Soon Be Worth $40 Billion

Cognition, the company behind an AI tool called Devin that can write and fix software on its own, is in talks with investors to raise new funding at a valuation of at least $40 billion, according to a report published by Bloomberg on August 12, 2026. If the round closes at that figure, it would be a more than 50% increase over the $26 billion valuation the company secured just three months earlier, when it raised $1 billion in May 2026.

The new valuation is tied to Cognition's revenue growth. The company is reportedly on track to reach $1 billion in annual revenue, according to Bloomberg and corroborated by TechCrunch. Think of that figure like this: if the company's current monthly income stayed the same for a full year, it would add up to about $1 billion.

In May, Cognition's Scott Wu confirmed to TechCrunch that the company had been on track for $492 million in annual revenue at that time. The new $1 billion figure being cited to investors would represent roughly a doubling over a short period. Wu also said at the time that business customers' usage of Devin was growing 50% month-over-month for the preceding six months.

Cognition has not publicly confirmed the funding talks. Its official blog contains no statement about the reported round or the $40 billion figure as of this capture. Bloomberg broke the story; TechCrunch published its own corroborating report the same day.

The speed of the valuation climb is notable. Cognition went from $26 billion in May to a reported $40 billion target in August, a span of roughly ninety days. In my view, that kind of rapid jump shows how eager investors are to back AI companies that can point to real customer revenue rather than just promising research. The $40 billion figure places Cognition in rare company among privately held AI companies, and the revenue multiple being implied, even at the $1 billion annual figure, is aggressive by any conventional software benchmark.

Most AI tools for programmers act like a smart assistant, suggesting the next line of code as someone types. Devin is different. It is designed to take a task description and work through it on its own, making decisions about how to approach the problem and writing the code itself. Wu has told TechCrunch that the product is not being sold as a human replacement; instead, it is frequently used on time-consuming engineering tasks such as updating old software or moving applications between platforms. The company's customer list includes Mercedes-Benz, NASA, and Goldman Sachs.

Cognition has also been building out its market through partnerships and acquisitions. The company partnered with LTM to deploy Devin across LTM's global client base and cybersecurity practice, which serves over 260 clients including 26 of the Fortune 500 and the top five global banks. On its blog, Cognition has announced welcoming The Interaction Company of California, maker of Poke, into the company, as well as TierZero, whose automation work was brought into Devin. Cognition also noted that it and Windsurf combined their work roughly one year ago.

On the government side, Cognition signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy to join the Genesis Mission, a national initiative described as "America's Manhattan Project for AI." Devin is FedRAMP Class D (High) In-Process and listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace, positioning it for federal procurement. FedRAMP is the government's security review process for technology products; achieving High status means the product meets the government's most stringent security requirements.

Cognition has also been improving its own AI models. The company launched SWE-1.7, which it described as the most capable model it had trained to date. It also introduced an AI Productivity Guarantee for business customers, committing to fund usage up to $10 million if Devin delivers less engineering value than what was paid for. That guarantee is an unusual bet in a category where the financial payoff is still being established; it shifts a portion of the risk from the customer to Cognition itself.

The broader context here is the gap between Cognition's May revenue figure and the $1 billion annual figure now being cited to investors. If the company has roughly doubled its annual revenue in three months, that would be consistent with the 50% month-over-month growth Wu reported, though the math depends heavily on the starting point and customer mix. Investors evaluating the $40 billion round will need to assess whether that growth is being driven by new customer contracts, more usage within existing accounts, or a combination of both.

The AI coding tool category has attracted significant capital and competitive attention. What distinguishes Cognition's trajectory is less the existence of the category than the revenue numbers attached to it. A $1 billion annual revenue figure at a private company less than two years after Devin's public debut, if accurate, would place Cognition among the fastest-growing enterprise software companies on record by that metric. Whether the $40 billion valuation is justified by current revenue or reflects a bet on how large the market for autonomous coding tools could become is the question investors are now weighing.