Personal-agent startup Instinct raises $1B at a $10B valuation

Crunchbase News reported on 2 October 2026 that Instinct, a year-old San Francisco startup building a personal AI assistant for everyday tasks, raised a $1 billion Series C. Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Coatue backed the round at a $10 billion valuation. It was the largest US round that week in a top-10 list Crunchbase described as almost all about AI.

What it means Investors are paying frontier-lab prices for consumer personal-agent products, so OpenAI's and Meta's agent launches now face well-funded rivals.