Instinct Quadruples Valuation to $10B in $1B Series C

Instinct has raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation — a fourfold jump from the $2.5 billion valuation it announced just one month ago. Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue participated in the round, which the company confirmed as a Series C in a press release on Monday.

The Information first reported on the fundraising efforts earlier this month. The speed of the raise is striking for a startup that launched its invite-only service in August 2026.

The back-to-back rounds reflect investor fervor around a new class of consumer AI agents. These assistants do not just answer questions or hold conversations. They get things done: booking travel, securing restaurant reservations, making purchases, paying bills, canceling subscriptions, conducting tedious research and ordering groceries.

How the agent works

When asked to perform a task, Instinct uses its own phone number and its own computer. That design separates it from chatbots that merely simulate action.

The company recently shipped additional features. A "concierge" function can make phone calls on a user's behalf — useful for booking appointments at businesses that don't offer online scheduling. A "trusted person network" lets one person's Instinct agent coordinate plans with agents belonging to their friends.

Those capabilities carry a cost. Users are questioning how much personal information they must disclose to AI agents to unlock them. Instinct's initial privacy policy drew particular criticism for its overreach, according to the source report. The company has since updated the policy.

Meta looms

Instinct now faces fresh competition from Meta's own AI assistant, Muse. Muse offers many features similar to Instinct's, plus deep integration with Meta's social products. That integration lets Muse do much of what Instinct does — and then go further, monitoring and summarizing Instagram DMs or Facebook Groups and watching Marketplace listings.

Those capabilities have pushed Muse to the top of the U.S. app store charts, where it has been downloaded millions of times. Instinct, by contrast, has no mobile app at all. It communicates with users over SMS and texting.

The startup has not shared user numbers or any growth metrics. Its investors are clearly seeing something they like anyway — enough to write a ten-figure check twice in roughly a month.

The founder's pitch

Instinct declined to make founder Noah Shinn available for interviews alongside the fundraising news. Instead, the company shared a statement attributed to him.

"We're building Instinct to be the best personal agent that can handle the deeply personal nuances of everyday life," Shinn said in the statement. "This funding helps us bring Instinct to more people and continue building the future of personal AI. It's an exciting, creative time, and we're just getting started."

What's at stake

The valuation gap tells the story of the moment. A two-month-old invite-only service with no disclosed users and no mobile app now commands a $10 billion price tag. Its chief rival ships preinstalled inside one of the world's largest social ecosystems and already tops the download charts.

The bet for Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue is that independent agents with their own phone numbers and computers — agents that act rather than chat — can outrun platform-native rivals that sit one integration away from billions of social media accounts. Whether Shinn's team can convert a $1 billion war chest and viral word of mouth into durable engagement, without an app or disclosed metrics, will define the next chapter of the consumer agent race.