> Windsurf began in 2021 as Exafunction, founded by MIT graduates Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen. The company initially focused on GPU optimization before pivoting to AI-assisted coding tools, launching Codeium, which later evolved into Windsurf.
> Series B (January 2024): $65 million at a $500 million valuation.
> Series C (September 2024): $150 million, led by General Catalyst, at a $1.3 billion valuation.
> May 2025: $3 billion acquisition from OpenAI
I wonder how much of the value is really from the model or the tooling around it. They all use the same models (mostly Claude, others have been horrible and buggy in my experience). Even co-pilot agent mode now uses Claude. The editor has their own LLM (?) that does the apply since LLMs often return snippets. They work well enough on Cursor. And then you have the auto-complete, which I think is their own model as well.
But the main value from me is from the agent mode and 95% of the value is the underlying model. The other stuff could be more or less a VS Code plugin. The other benefit is the fixed pricing. I have no idea how much 500 calls cost if I were to use the API, but I expect they're probably losing money.
> The other stuff could be more or less a VS Code plugin
The other stuff would take a team 6 months to implement. This is where the valuation comes from. Time to market, they are there TODAY.