The AI coding track is once again experiencing a wave of mergers and acquisitions. Following its recent acquisition of the talent recruitment company Growth by Design and the integration of the CRM startup Koala team in July, AI code assistant leader Cursor has made another move — officially announcing the acquisition of AI code review company Graphite. According to Axios, citing sources, the transaction price "far exceeded" Graphite's valuation of $290 million earlier this year, highlighting Cursor's determined ambition to build an end-to-end AI development loop.

Strong Collaboration: From "Generation" to "Self-Review," Completing the Last Mile of Development

Currently, AI-generated code often contains hidden defects, requiring engineers to spend significant time debugging. Although Cursor has already launched the Bugbot automated review tool, Graphite brings a key differentiating capability — "Stacked Pull Requests." This technology allows developers to handle multiple interdependent code changes in parallel without waiting for previous PRs to be merged, greatly improving collaboration efficiency.

This integration will achieve:

- Cursor takes charge of intelligent generation (Write);

- Graphite takes charge of deep review and process optimization (Review & Ship);

Creating a full-chain automated development experience of "AI writes — AI reviews — AI pushes — AI merges."

Capital and Personal Networks Deeply Interwoven, Ecological Synergy Comes Naturally

This acquisition was not accidental. Cursor CEO Michael Truell and the three co-founders of Graphite, Merrill Lutsky, Greg Foster, and Tomas Reimers, had known each other since university through Neo Scholar (an elite program initiated by renowned angel investor Ali Partovi). Both companies share top-tier investors such as Accel and Andreessen Horowitz, with Graphite's seed round led by Neo. This "alumni + shared investor" connection has paved the way for technological and team integration.

Expansion Logic Under a 29 Billion Valuation

Since its valuation surged to $29 billion in November 2025, Cursor has been rapidly integrating the developer ecosystem:

- In July, it acquired the Koala team to strengthen AI-driven customer relationship management;

- In November, it integrated Growth by Design to optimize the recruitment of top engineering talent;

- Now it has absorbed Graphite, filling the gap in code quality and collaboration processes.

This move also reflects that the competition in AI programming tools has upgraded from "single-point features" to "full lifecycle platform" battles. Competitors like CodeRabbit (valued at $550 million) and Greptile (which recently secured a $25 million Series A round) may have advantages in specific review areas, but they are unlikely to match Cursor's ecological integration capabilities.