Sept 10 (Reuters) - AI software developer platform

Replit on Wednesday said it has raised $250 million in a funding

round that values the San Francisco-based company at $3 billion,

as investors continue to back AI startups.

Valuations for code-generation firms or "code-gen"

startups have climbed as companies look to use AI to assist -

and in some cases replace - human software engineers.

Replit was valued at just over $1 billion in 2023 after

it raised $97.4 million. The company said its annualized revenue

rose to $150 million from $2.8 million in less than a year.

The latest financing was led by Prysm Capital and includes

Google's AI Futures Fund and Amex Ventures as

strategic investors. Existing backers including Andreessen

Horowitz - also known as a16z - and Coatue increased their

investments.

Companies including Duolingo ( DUOL ) and Zillow ( ZG ) use

Replit to build applications. Replit on Wednesday launched Agent

3, an autonomous tool that can test and fix code and build

custom agents and workflows.

In May, Cursor, a San Francisco-based code-generation

startup that suggests and completes lines of code and can write

sections of code autonomously, raised $900 million at a $10

billion valuation.