2 tools found
Global Illumination was a small NYC studio founded by ex-Instagram and Facebook engineers that built creative tools and a Minecraft-style sandbox game called Biomes. OpenAI announced in August 2023 that it had acquired the company in its first-ever acquisition; the team joined OpenAI to work on core products including ChatGPT. The Biomes code is open-source but the company brand was retired.
Codeium rebranded its AI IDE as Windsurf in late 2024 and grew into one of the most-used Cursor alternatives. Google announced an unusual $2.4B licensing deal in July 2025 that took CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and the core research team to DeepMind without buying the company. Two days later, Cognition (maker of Devin) acquired the remaining Windsurf product, IP, and employees for an undisclosed sum. Windsurf now operates as a Cognition brand.