Personal AI agent startup Instinct has raised $1 billion in Series C funding, SiliconANGLE reported on Sept. 28 (local time).

Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue participated in the round. Instinct was valued at $10 billion in the funding.

A month earlier, Instinct raised $250 million in funding led by Index Ventures and Benchmark. Its valuation at the time was $2.5 billion.

Instinct is incorporated as Spear Street Technology and is developing an AI assistant for individual users to use in daily life. The Instinct AI assistant understands the context of a user's everyday digital life and supports autonomous handling of various tasks by typing a few words on a PC or speaking into a phone. It can cover tasks such as planning long-distance car trips, ordering weekly groceries, or canceling forgotten subscriptions.

The company said it can open web pages and apps and interact with them directly through its own virtual phone and computer.

In recent months, Instinct has also built phone-based concierge task handling functions. It can carry out tasks that require phone calls and advanced bookings, such as restaurant reservations, hospital appointments, service cancellations and bill organization.

Users can coordinate schedules and make plans by directly exchanging files, PDFs, images and spreadsheets with Instinct assistants of friends or colleagues they trust. It has also strengthened an iMessage-based location-sharing function that recognizes when users arrive at a specific place and offers suggestions tailored to their location and preferences.

Instinct is facing multiple competing products in the personal AI assistant market. Startup competitors mentioned include Wazo, Ollie and Fogg. In broader terms, OpenAI's ChatGPT, SpaceXAI's Grok, Apple's Siri and Meta's Muse are also competing in the same area.