Openai’s agreement to acquire the viral AI coding start Windsurf for $ 3 billion fell apart on Friday, according to The Verge.
In a shocking VRI, Google Deepmind now hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co -founder Douglas Chen and some of the start -up researchers. A Google spokesman confirmed the hiring of Windsurf’s leaders in a trema for TechCrunch.
“Was happy to welcome some Top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s Team to Google Deepmind to promote our work in agent coding,” Google spokesman Chris Pappas said in an E email to Techcrunch.
Notally, Google does not take a share in Windsurf and will have no control over the business. As part of the deal, however, Google has a non -exclusive license for certain Windsurf technology, although the AI coding start remains free to licenses its technology to others.
The action presentations AI-ecosystem’s latest Reverser-Acquihire, where a company hires a start-up top talent and licenses its technology but did not acquire the company. Google previously implemented a similar agreement with hiring back character.ai CEO Noam Shazeer, just like Microsoft to hire Mustafa Suleyman. These offers have helped several large tech companies increase their position in the AI race without drawing legislative pottoy.
“We are pleased to join Google Deepmind with some of the Windsurf team,” Mohan and Chen said in a statement to Techcrunch. “We are proud of what Windsurf has built in the last four years and are happy to see it moving on with their world-class team and kick-start the next phase.
From Friday, Windsurf’s business manager Jeff Wang, as Startup’s temporary CEO he announced in a post on social media. Most of Windsurf’s 250 -person teams are not on their way to Google Deepmind and will continue to offer its AI coding tools to corporate customers.
Openai’s Agreement on Accuire Windsurf has reportedly been an important tension point in Chatgpt Maker’s contract negotiations with Microsoft. Microsoft currently has access to all Openai’s intellectual property; However, Openai did not want his big backman to get Wandsurf’s AI coding technology, in accordance with previous reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
Earlier on Friday, Fortune reported that the exclusive period about Openai offering to acquire Windsurf had expired, which means Windsurf would now be free to explore other offers. It looks like Windsurf didn’t wait long.
In recent months, Windsurf has been one of the hottest AI coding startups on the market. In April, the start of the startup reached about $ 100 million, TechCrunch previously exposed, up from about $ 40 million months earlier. The rapid growth attractive volunteers like Openai and apparently Google.
The addition of Mohan, Chen and other Windsurf leaders could never increase Google’s ability to build AI coding tools. In recent months, AI model providers have focused more on offering AI coding applications to ethical developers. Anthropic has increased its returned significantly on the back of its AI coding tool, Claude Code, while Openai continues to pitch codex, its AI coding agent, to software engineers.
Windsurf, on the other hand, is left in a much more uncertain position as a result of this agreement. Other AI-Startups that have been reversed are intended to maintain the same momentum they had before. Scale AI lost customers as a result of its agreement with Meta, whereas Infect had to turn completely from consumer AI AI Aits Deal with Microsft.
It looks like Windsurf liked a similar fate.