GoKawiil
Tech News
Instinct, maker of a viral AI assistant that performs tasks like booking travel and making calls on users' behalf, has raised $1 billion in a Series C round led by investors including Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue. The round values the company at $10 billion, just a month after a prior raise valued it at $2.5 billion, and comes roughly a year after its invite-only launch in August 2026.
Benchmark's entire current partnership—Jack Altman, Peter Fenton, Chetan Puttagunta, Everett Randle and Eric Vishria—will join a single main-stage panel at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco, marking the first time the full team has appeared together on the Disrupt Stage. The session, titled 'What We Believe Now,' will focus on where future startups may emerge and which founder assumptions deserve rethinking. The panel follows Benchmark's recent expansion, having raised roughly $2 billion this year across a new flagship fund and its first growth fund.