Instinct raises $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation, a month after its Series B

Instinct, the San Francisco company behind a personal AI agent of the same name, announced on 28 September 2026 a $1 billion Series C at a $10 billion valuation. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Coatue. The legal entity is Spear Street Technology Inc., and the company was founded by Noah Shinn.

The valuation is four times the $2.5 billion set in the Series B closed in August 2026, when the service opened by invitation. Reports differ on the size of that round: SiliconANGLE puts it at $250 million, co-led by Index Ventures and Benchmark, while TechCrunch reports $350 million.

The product is an agent that carries out everyday tasks from start to finish instead of suggesting what to do. It books trips and restaurants, orders groceries, pays bills, cancels subscriptions, schedules appointments and deals with service providers. Users talk to it by text message or voice; the agent uses its own virtual phone and computer to operate apps and websites, and a concierge service handles phone calls for more complex cases. A trust network lets the agents of different users coordinate with each other. The service is still in early access and has no mobile app.

Instinct has not disclosed user numbers or revenue, so the price investors paid rests on expectations rather than results. Two rounds in about a month put it among the fastest-growing valuations in consumer AI in 2026. Competition is broad: specialised start-ups such as Wajo, Ollie and Poke, and the agent functions of ChatGPT, Grok, Siri and Meta's Muse, which already has millions of downloads.

For Benchmark, which took part in both rounds, the new price multiplies the value of the position taken in August. For the market, the deal shows that large funds are paying for personal agents at levels that until recently were reserved for model developers.