OpenAI pursued Cursor maker earlier than getting into into talks to purchase Windsurf for $3B

When information broke that OpenAI was in talks to amass AI coding firm Windsurf for $3 billion, one of many first questions on the thoughts of anybody following the house was probably: “Why not purchase Cursor creator Anysphere as an alternative?”

In spite of everything, OpenAI Startup Fund has been an investor in Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, because the rapidly rising coding assistant’s seed spherical in late 2023.  (Anysphere is commonly referred to by its product title, Cursor.) It seems that OpenAI certainly approached Anysphere in 2024 and once more earlier this yr a few potential acquisition,  in keeping with a report from CNBC. The talks failed. As an alternative, Anysphere has been in talks to boost capital at about $10 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported final month.

OpenAI’s want to maneuver on to acquisition discussions with one other coding assistant maker indicators how essential capturing a slice of the code era market has turn out to be for the ChatGPT maker. Windsurf is producing about $40 million in annualized recurring income (ARR), TechCrunch reported in February. In the meantime, Anysphere’s Cursor reportedly makes about $200 million on an ARR foundation.

Whereas OpenAI’s Codex CLI “agent,” which the corporate launched Wednesday, also can write and edit code, its try to purchase Windsurf suggests the corporate doesn’t need to look ahead to CLI to achieve traction with clients.