Cohere Secures $500M Funding at $6.8B Valuation, Bolsters Executive Team

Cohere, a Toronto-based AI startup founded by former Google researchers, has raised $500 million in a funding round led by Radical Ventures and Inovia Capital. The investment values the company at $6.8 billion, up from $5.5 billion last year. The round saw participation from AMD Ventures, Nvidia, PSP Investments, and Salesforce Ventures, among others.

The firm specializes in developing large language models for enterprise clients, emphasizing privacy and compliance—a critical differentiator in regulated sectors like banking and government. Cohere has onboarded Joelle Pineau, Meta's former AI research head, as chief AI officer, and ex-Uber executive Francois Chadwick as CFO.

Partnerships with Royal Bank of Canada, Fujitsu, and Oracle underscore its focus on trust and safety as competitive advantages against U.S. rivals like OpenAI. The capital infusion will accelerate its bid to dominate the B2B AI market.