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When news broke that OpenAI was in talks to acquire AI coding company\u00a0Windsurf for $3 billion<\/a>, one of the first questions on the mind of anyone following the space was likely: \u201cWhy not buy Cursor creator Anysphere instead?\u201d<\/p>\n After all, OpenAI Startup Fund has been an investor in Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, since the quickly-growing coding assistant\u2019s seed round<\/a> in late 2023. \u00a0(Anysphere is often referred to by its product name, Cursor.) It turns out that OpenAI indeed approached Anysphere in 2024 and again earlier this year about a potential acquisition, \u00a0according to a report from CNBC<\/a>. The talks failed. Instead, Anysphere has been in talks to raise capital at about $10 billion valuation<\/a>, Bloomberg reported last month.<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s desire to move on to acquisition discussions with another coding assistant maker signals how important capturing a slice of the code generation market has become for the ChatGPT maker. Windsurf is generating about $40 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR), TechCrunch reported<\/a> in February. Meanwhile, Anysphere\u2019s Cursor reportedly makes about $200 million on an ARR basis.<\/p>\n While OpenAI\u2019s Codex CLI \u201cagent,\u201d which the company released Wednesday<\/a>, can also write and edit code, its attempt to buy Windsurf suggests the company doesn\u2019t want to wait for CLI to gain traction with customers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n