Instinct, the viral AI assistant built by Spear Street Technology, raised $250M in a Series B co-led by Index Ventures and Benchmark, bringing total funding to $350M at a $2.5B valuation.
Founded last year by 23-year-old Noah Shinn, Instinct connects to users’ apps and devices and communicates by text and call. The company says early users have planned road trips, bought groceries and concert tickets, cancelled subscriptions, and even planned a wedding with the agent.
The startup is still in private beta with a deliberately lo-fi website, but it has generated controversy over privacy. Users have flagged the app’s broad permissions and terms of use as invasive.
The round caps a summer in which the company rode surging enthusiasm for personal AI agents to a multi-billion-dollar valuation. The Wall Street Journal first reported the raise.
