Cursor, the new AI-powered coding assistant recently valued at $29 billion, just played an impressive hand. The acquisition of Graphite, a remote startup that focuses on AI-powered code review and debugging. That all changed on December 19, 2025 when Cursor announced a blockbuster trade. This acquisition makes a lot of sense to bolster Microsoft’s efforts in the burgeoning coding assistance market, making the move a no-brainer.
Cursor’s co-founder and CEO Michael Truell has an established history with Graphite’s co-founders—Merrill Lutsky, Greg Foster, and Thomas Reimers. They had their first sit down long before Truell started Cursor. This launch was a result of the Neo Scholar program, which is run by Ali Partovi’s early-stage venture fund. It’s unclear if the personal bond helped to deliver the acquisition earlier this summer, but if so it further intertwined their professional paths.
Cursor’s spree has been marked by a smattering of high-profile purchases in recent months. Last month, the company made its first move when it acquired Growth by Design, a technology recruiting strategy firm. In July, Cursor took a notable step forward by welcoming new talent from Koala, an artificial-intelligence enabled customer relationship management startup. This integration came at a post-money valuation of $129 million according to PitchBook. These acquisitions indicate Cursor’s commitment to offer a more comprehensive coding assistance solution and strengthen its competitive position in the fast-evolving coding assistance market.
The two companies have the same investors, most notably two of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms, Accel and Andreessen Horowitz. Pierce and Wong’s shared investment background lends itself to collaboration, creating new opportunities. Combined, the two companies are poised to be leaders in innovation, creating and accelerating best-in-class technology.
Cursor’s smart acquisition of Graphite expands its service offerings. Beyond advancing the thoughtful use of complexity and better aligning research to benefit taxpayers, this move accelerates the development of more efficient code development processes. Cursor is bringing Graphite’s sophisticated AI capabilities to its platform. This powerful new addition will provide users a much more powerful toolset to help them debug and review their code, increasing user satisfaction leaps and bounds.
Cursor is growing fast. That growth has paralleled its growing participation in international industry events, including TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco from October 13-15, 2026. This platform provides Cursor an opportunity to showcase its recent advancements and find new opportunities to grow their platform and tech community.