Vibe coding startup skyrockets to $9.9B

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. San Francisco-based AI startup Anysphere just snagged $900M, taking its valuation to nearly $10B in record time.

Its AI coding tool, Cursor, is leading the “vibe coding” revolution—squaring off against Windsurf, Replit, and Emergent as investors flood the space, betting big on what could be tech’s next breakout.

In today’s tech rundown:

• Anysphere nabs $900M at $9.9B valuation

• Coinbase co-founder eyes CRISPR baby startup

• Japan’s lunar city hits major setback

• Defense tech Anduril gets $30B valuation

• Quick hits on other major news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

ANYSPHERE

💰 Anysphere nabs $900M at $9.9B valuation

The Rundown: Anysphere, the San Francisco AI upstart behind the red-hot “vibe coding” assistant Cursor, just pulled off one of the biggest funding rounds in software history — raising $900M at a staggering $9.9B valuation.

The details:

• Founded by ex-OpenAI and Tesla engineers, Anysphere has become the poster child of generative AI, with annualized revenue doubling every two months. 

• Cursor, their flagship product, transforms coding into a conversational, AI-powered experience, letting developers write code using natural language.

• The latest funding round was led by Thrive Capital, with major participation from top-tier venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and DST Global.

• This is Anysphere’s third fundraising in less than a year, following a $100M round at a $2.5B valuation in late 2024.

Why it matters: Cursor counts engineers from OpenAI, Stripe, and Spotify among its users, along with AI luminary Andrej Karpathy. The company’s explosive growth has made it one of the fastest-growing vibe coding startups ever, with the company claiming that it now generates close to a billion lines of code each day.

BIOTECH/CRISPR

🧬 Coinbase co-founder eyes CRISPR baby startup

The Rundown: Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong looks to be moving into one of medicine’s most controversial frontiers: gene-editing human embryos. This week, he announced on X a plan to launch a U.S. startup focused on “embryo editing.”

The details:

• Armstrong said he is actively recruiting gene-editing and bioinformatics experts for a startup that will help target genetic disorders.

• This move would represent the first major commercial investment in a field still reeling from the global backlash to China’s 2018 CRISPR baby experiment.

• His interest is reportedly fueled by recent advances in base editing, a more precise gene-editing method that can swap out individual DNA letters.

• U.S. law currently prohibits the FDA from even reviewing applications for gene-edited babies, and the field is heavily stigmatized.

Why it matters: Critics warn that gene-editing to select or eliminate traits risks reviving eugenic practices, while Armstrong—already known for his investments in longevity startup New Limit—joins a wave of tech billionaires aiming to use disruptive technology to reshape not just financial systems, but humanity’s genetic future.

ISPACE

🌗 Japan’s lunar city hits major setback

The Rundown: Japan’s ispace wants to make lunar living a reality by putting a thousand people on the moon by 2040. But on Thursday, its latest probe, Resilience, proved that even bold ambitions can’t outmaneuver the moon’s harsh realities.

The details:

• The privately owned space company aims to build a lunar city with 1K permanent residents and host thousands more as lunar tourists by 2040.

• Its latest mission aimed to deliver a mini rover, scientific instruments, and a symbolic red “Moonhouse” art installation to the lunar surface.

• But a malfunction in the lander’s laser rangefinder delayed crucial altitude readings, preventing it from slowing down in time and leading to a crash.

• This marks ispace’s second failed lunar landing, following a similar crash during its first mission in 2023.

Why it matters: CEO Takeshi Hakamada pledged a thorough investigation, vowing to “restore trust” and keep pushing toward the company’s lunar vision. But with two hard landings in a row, ispace’s dream of a lunar metropolis now faces a steep climb back to credibility and technical readiness.

ANDURIL

🪖 Defense tech Anduril reaches $30B valuation

The Rundown: Anduril, the defense tech company founded by Oculus creator Palmer Luckey (famously fired from Facebook in 2016 for donating to a pro-Trump group), just closed a massive $2.5B funding round, more than doubling its valuation to $30.5B.

The details:

• The round was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, which alone invested $1B—the largest check in the fund’s history.

• Anduril’s revenue nearly doubled to $1B in 2024, driven by a surge in U.S. military contracts and the growing demand for its autonomous systems.

• The company also recently took over Microsoft’s $22B augmented reality headset contract with the U.S. Army.

• Anduril is investing heavily in manufacturing, including the $1B Arsenal-1 facility in Ohio, to scale up production of drones and other systems.

Why it matters: Anduril’s rise signals a shift in defense tech, as venture capital floods into startups aiming to modernize military hardware amid rising global tensions. Now valued at about half the size of legacy giants like Northrop Grumman, Anduril is betting that Silicon Valley speed and software-first innovation can outpace the old guard.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in tech today

Elon Musk reversed his threat to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft after a public feud with President Trump over government contracts.

Meta signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to purchase about 1.1 gigawatts of nuclear power in Illinois, starting in 2027.

Perplexity handled 780M queries in May, CEO Aravind Srinivas said, adding that the AI search engine is seeing more than 20% month-over-month growth.

OpenAI is appealing against a court order in the New York Times copyright lawsuit that requires it to indefinitely preserve ChatGPT output data.

Apple agreed to pay $95M to settle a class action lawsuit concerning its Siri voice assistant allegedly recording, storing, or sharing private conversations without consent.

Amazon is investing $10B to build new AI and cloud computing data centers in North Carolina, marking one of the largest tech investments in the state’s history.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a new 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes, electric scooters, and pedal-assisted commercial bicycles.

Joby Aviation is negotiating a $1B deal to sell up to 200 of its eVTOL air taxis to Abdul Latif Jameel, a major Saudi Arabian investment conglomerate.

Apple reported that its App Store ecosystem facilitated $1.3T in global billings and sales in 2024.

COMMUNITY

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See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team