Instinct has closed a $1 billion Series C round at a $10 billion valuation, four times the $2.5 billion valuation reported roughly a month earlier. The San Francisco startup, founded in 2025 by 23-year-old Noah Shinn, operates an invite-only AI agent that users contact through SMS and phone calls to arrange travel, restaurant bookings, home services and other everyday tasks. The 14-person company began beta testing in February and had surpassed 100,000 users within weeks of its August 2026 launch, according to the existing company account. Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue participated in the financing. Tests have found the service capable of cancelling a difficult-to-change flight reservation, securing restaurant bookings and identifying a possible scam, though its terms allowing some conversations to train models have prompted privacy concerns. Instinct is competing in a fast-growing market for task-oriented consumer AI assistants that includes Meta's Muse and OpenAI's planned O assistant.