Anysphere, maker of AI “vibe coding” app Cursor, has closed a new round of funding that more than triples its valuation to about $9 billion. Cursor revealed it had attracted $900 million in a fresh round of funding led by Thrive Capital.
The Financial Times reported that other top firms, such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Accel, are participating in the funding. The company was previously valued at $2.5 billion in January when it raised $105 million from Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz.
Cursor hits $9 billion valuation with new round of funding
Anysphere, creator of AI coding tool Cursor, secures $900M at a $9B valuation, led by Thrive Capital.
A leap from $2.5B in Jan, showing AI coding's hot streak! 🚀 #AI #TechFunding #Cursor pic.twitter.com/X3R02g8NSD
— Sidnan (@sidnan_s) May 5, 2025
According to people familiar with the matter, OpenAI backer Thrive Capital led a $900M round of funding for San Francisco-based Anysphere. The creator of the fast-growing programming tool Cursor closed the new funding round, pushing its valuation to about $9 billion.
The rise in Anysphere’s price tag comes after annual recurring revenues grew quickly since its last funding round, surging to about $200 million in April to make it one of the fastest-growing software companies ever. The people familiar with the matter argued that the rise in valuation would likely reignite concerns among some investors about the sustainability of AI company valuations, given recent drawbacks in public markets.
Cursor has emerged as a leader among computer programmers for its AI-powered software development toolkits, which its creators revealed write almost one billion lines of working code daily. The company notes on its website that users can utilize natural language to tell the AI what to make instead of writing code by hand, which accelerates productivity for programmers.
The firm’s website also shows Cursor has customers at tech companies, including Stripe, OpenAI, and Spotify, as well as prominent AI researchers such as Andrej Karpathy.
In February, the former Tesla and OpenAI engineers established the phrase “vibe coding” to describe an almost trance-like state of talking to Cursor’s AI to create software “where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.”
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said last month that over 30% of code submitted on its internal software development involves people accepting AI-suggested solutions.
AI valuation escalates amid growing interest in AI
OpenAI revealed it reached a valuation of $260 billion in March after SoftBank committed to lead a $40 billion investment round into the tech firm. Two entities founded by former executives at OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence, and Mira Murati’s Thinking Machine Lab, have also targeted large fundraising rounds.
People familiar with the matter acknowledged that SSI recently received a $30 billion valuation while Murati’s company was in talks to raise $2 billion at a $10 billion valuation.
Several AI coding start-ups have emerged since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, including Windsurf, Poolside, and Replit. According to data from Dealroom and Flashpoint, AI start-ups raised $8.2 billion in 2024, more than twice as much as the previous year.
Anthropic also reported last week and just closed days ago its fresh $3.5 billion funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners that valued it at $61.5 billion. The firm’s new valuation will be more than triple what it was just a year ago when it was valued at $18.5B.
The round will also value Anthropic more than Elon Musk’s xAI, which was valued at $50 billion in November after its $6 billion Series C funding that Lightspeed also participated in.
Musk revealed he wants X to become “the everything app,” a platform that seamlessly blends social media, AI, and payments. The entrepreneur is reportedly seeking $20 billion in new funding for this effort, which would value the company at over $120 billion.
Together AI also revealed it raised a $305 million funding round led by General Catalyst and Saudi Arabia’s Prosperity Ventures at a $3.3 billion valuation last month. The new valuation reflects an increase of over 160% from Together AI’s $1.25 billion valuation after Salesforce Ventures led a $106 million round for the Menlo Park, California-based startup just last March.
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