Spear Street Technology, which makes the invite-only AI assistant app Instinct, is negotiating a $1B round that would value it near $10B, with Sequoia and Benchmark in discussions to lead, according to Valida Pau at The Information. Only a few weeks earlier, it raised $250M at a $2.25B pre-money valuation, with Benchmark and Index Ventures leading. Instinct, which works much like the free Muse assistant Meta launched last week, lets people text it to answer messages, book restaurants, and negotiate bills. It has passed 100,000 users, and demand has at times outrun its compute and slowed its replies, which is part of why it’s raising again. CEO Noah Shinn wants to keep Instinct free for users and has pointed to advertising as a possible way to make money.
