Toronto-based generative artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cohere has closed fresh funding and launched a program aimed at supporting early-stage AI innovation.
As first reported by Reuters and independently confirmed by BetaKit, Cohere recently secured $450 million USD from returning backers, including chip giant Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures, plus new investors such as networking tech firm Cisco and Canadian pension fund PSP Investments.
“We are focused on providing secure and scalable AI solutions that address real-world business challenges for companies of all sizes.”
This marks the first tranche of Cohere’s months-long fundraising efforts, through which the company hopes to raise more capital at a $5 billion valuation. As of the end of March, Cohere generated $35 million in annualized revenue, up from $13 million last year.
BetaKit reached out to Cohere but the company declined to provide comment on the news.
Today, Cohere has also launched a new Startup Program targeted toward companies at the Series B stage or before. Cohere noted in a blog post that through this initiative, it aims to help other businesses leverage AI at an affordable price point.
Cohere plans to give eligible businesses access to all of its AI models at a 25-percent discount for up to 12 months, provide support from the company’s technical experts to help develop ideas and solve problems., and showcase participating startups. The initiative marks an evolution of Cohere’s initial beta program for early-stage companies.
“At Cohere, we are focused on providing secure and scalable AI solutions that address real-world business challenges for companies of all sizes, from the world’s largest enterprises to rapidly growing startups,” Cohere stated in its June 6 blog post. “For early-stage startups with small teams and limited resources, incorporating secure AI into their technology stacks is an imperative for innovation and gaining a competitive edge in their markets.”
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Founded in 2019 by Google Brain alumni, Cohere develops large-language models (LLMs) that can interpret and generate text in a way that simulates natural human language. Its competitors include OpenAI and Anthropic. Unlike some of its rivals, Cohere caters exclusively to businesses.
With its LLMs, Cohere aims to help researchers and other enterprises power interactive chat features, generate text for product descriptions, blog posts, and articles, and analyze the meaning of text for search and content moderation, among other applications.
To date, Cohere has worked with early-stage startups like Toronto’s Borderless AI and San Francisco-based Atomicwork.
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A year ago, Cohere secured $270-million in Series C financing from Inovia Capital, Nvidia, Oracle, Salesforce Ventures, and others at a reported $2-billion-plus valuation, as well as a strategic investment from software giant SAP.
With its latest funding, Cohere has now raised approximately $900 million from a group that also includes Tiger Global, Radical Ventures, Section 32, and AI leaders like Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Pieter Abbeel, and Waabi’s Raquel Urtasun.
Cisco’s strategic investment in Cohere comes out of Cisco Investments’ new, $1-billion AI fund. Cisco is also investing in two other generative AI startups through the fund: Paris-based Cohere competitor Mistral AI and San Francisco’s Scale AI. To date, Cisco has committed nearly $200 million of this $1 billion.
Feature image courtesy Cohere.
