Robinhood Ventures Puts $10 Million Into AI Coding Firm Cognition

Robinhood Ventures has invested $10 million in Cognition, the startup behind the AI coding agent Devin, the company told Fortune exclusively. The check makes Robinhood's venture arm a backer of two competing AI coding players at once, coming after its $75 million investment in OpenAI in April.

The Cognition deal was part of the startup's Series E round in September, which raised more than $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation. Robinhood is disclosing its participation for the first time. It joins Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and Founders Fund among the round's high-profile backers.

Cognition's growth is the headline number in the story. The company said in September that its annualized revenue run rate had reached almost $900 million, up from $492 million in May — nearly doubling in four months.

Why back two rivals in the same race?

Sarah Pinto, head of Robinhood Ventures, sees no conflict in funding competitors. "It's not a winner-take-all market," she said. OpenAI's Codex, Anthropic's Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Cognition's Devin are all fighting for developers' attention, and Pinto thinks the market supports more than one winner.

Robinhood's own practice backs that view. The company's engineers use multiple AI coding tools, Pinto noted. In its consumer business, Robinhood lets customers choose between different AI models to run its trading agents.

The investment case wasn't purely about market size or growth. Pinto first met Cognition cofounder and CEO Scott Wu in 2024, before she joined Robinhood, and was struck by his conviction about where AI was heading. Even as the technology and the market shifted, Wu's "vision really never changed," she said — something she called "pretty extraordinary."

Her broader thesis is leadership-driven. "It's all about who are the leaders of these companies and do we think that they are these legendary A-plus teams that can bend the future to their will," Pinto said. "Scott is very much that." Cognition's other cofounders are Steven Hao, Walden Yan, and Russell Kaplan.

How everyday investors get a piece

The Cognition stake sits inside Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a publicly traded closed-end fund that began trading in March. The fund gives retail investors exposure to private companies — its holdings include Databricks, Revolut, and ElevenLabs, among others. Investors can buy and sell fund shares on the stock exchange instead of securing a direct stake in those businesses.

The fund just posted its strongest quarter yet. Robinhood told Fortune the fund's net asset value jumped about 17% for the quarter ended September 30 — its biggest quarterly increase to date.

Pinto argues the structure solves a real access problem. Getting exposure to private assets is difficult even for accredited investors, she said. It often depends on connections, on who can cut the largest checks, and on a willingness to tie up money for years.

"That just doesn't work for most people, which means that most people have to completely give up on the idea of essentially owning a piece of the most innovative companies and where a lot of the wealth creation is happening," Pinto said.

With Cognition's revenue run rate climbing from $492 million in May toward $900 million by September, Robinhood's dual bet on the AI coding race now rides on two of its fastest horses — and retail shareholders of Fund I are along for both rides.

By Amara Osei