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Acquisition Details
Anysphere, the company behind the popular AI-powered code editor Cursor, has announced its acquisition of AI coding assistant Supermaven for an undisclosed sum. This move is expected to significantly enhance Anysphere’s capabilities in the rapidly growing market of AI coding tools.
Acquisition Benefits
According to Michael Truell, CEO of Anysphere, the acquisition will enable the company to launch a new version of its Tab AI model that is "fast, context-aware, and highly intelligent." The Supermaven team will continue to maintain their plugins, but with a focus on Cursor as their core product.
Founding Team Background
Supermaven was founded by Jacob Jackson, who previously co-founded Tabnine, an AI coding assistant. After selling Tabnine to Codata in 2019, Jackson joined OpenAI as an intern, where he worked until 2022. Supermaven’s AI platform features a custom generative AI model called Babble that can understand large codebases and has extremely low latency.
Acquisition Timeline
As of September, over 35,000 developers had signed up for Supermaven, and the company had raised $12 million from investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman, and Perplexity co-founder Denis Yarats. Jackson stated that the timing felt right to join forces with Anysphere, as they wanted to build a more useful product together than Supermaven could alone.
Future Plans
The acquisition comes as Anysphere receives unsolicited offers from prominent investors, valuing the company at up to $2.5 billion. With the combined expertise of both companies, the Supermaven team will have the ability to design the editor UI together with the models, creating a more integrated and user-friendly experience.
Market Context
The market for AI coding tools is expected to reach $27.17 billion by 2032, according to Polaris Research’s projections. GitHub’s dev poll reveals that the vast majority of respondents have adopted AI tools in some form, and over 1.8 million people – and ~50,000 businesses – are paying for GitHub Copilot.
Competition
The market is highly competitive, with numerous AI-powered coding assistance startups vying for attention, including Augment, Codeium, Magic, and Poolside. However, Cursor has emerged as a leading option, with sources indicating that its revenue has grown to $4 million a month.
Conclusion
Anysphere’s acquisition of Supermaven marks a significant step in the development of AI-powered coding tools. The combined expertise of both companies is expected to create a more powerful and user-friendly product, further cementing Anysphere’s position as a leader in the market.
