Organisation
Windsurf
An AI-assisted code editor, formerly Codeium; its leadership was hired by Google in 2025 and the rest of the company acquired by Cognition.
Windsurf is a US maker of an AI-assisted code editor, founded in 2021 as Exafunction, known for most of its life as Codeium and renamed Windsurf in 2025. In mid-2025 the company was split apart: a planned $3bn acquisition by OpenAI fell through, after which Google hired its chief executive Varun Mohan and other leaders in a deal reported at around $2.4bn for a licence to its technology, and Cognition bought the remaining product, staff and intellectual property for a reported $250m. The episode became a widely cited example of the "acqui-hire" structure through which large firms absorbed AI talent without a full takeover.
- Category
- Agents & applied AI
- Founded
- 2021
- HQ
- Mountain View, US
- Funding
- Split in 2025: ~$2.4bn Google licence-and-hire; ~$250m Cognition purchase
- Status
- Acquired
- Key people
- Varun Mohan, Douglas Chen