Toronto-based artificial intelligence company Cohere is having one, raising $500 million in an oversubscribed funding round. This success has sent its valuation soaring to a staggering $6.8 billion. Founded in 2019 by Aidan Gomez, a co-author of the influential “Attention is All You Need” paper which laid the groundwork for modern AI, Cohere has quickly positioned itself as a leader in the large language model (LLM) sector.
The funding round, which could end up totaling $425 million, is a significant jump from Cohere’s last valuation of $5.5 billion after another $500 million round. This major capital infusion will help Cohere strengthen its technical capabilities and pursuit of an expanded, competitive footprint in the rapidly expanding AI market.
Cohere’s impressive growth trajectory raised the eyebrows of other high-profile investors. Earlier this year, tech giants including AMD, Nvidia, Salesforce and Oracle rushed to the company’s aid. This support from such prominent industry veterans further highlights the conviction behind Cohere’s pioneering approach to enterprise AI solutions.
Cohere takes another strategic move to shore up leadership ranks. They’ve named Francois Chadwick to be their new Chief Financial Officer. Chadwick resigned from his job at KPMG, an international consulting company. He now provides deep and broad technical expertise as the organization steers through tumultuous waters of rapid development.
Cohere is recognized as one of the first breakout companies in the LLM model space, focusing on creating enterprise-level AI solutions. The company is focused on a security-first approach to AI. Their technology is purpose-built for business applications, as opposed to simply retooled consumer versions.
“Our product represents a security-first category of enterprise AI that is simply not being met by repurposed consumer models.” – Cohere
So far, Cohere has received impressive backing from firms, including Innovia and Radical. This support has ensured its place in that race to develop the most advanced AI in the world. Radical has a track record of supporting other groundbreaking companies, including Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs and Hebbia.
Cohere is a company that’s developing very quickly at the cutting edge of the AI world. There is little doubt that its innovations will drive the future of enterprise artificial intelligence. Charged with that deep support and laser-like mission, Cohere is set to make big waves in foundation LLM technologies.
