Cohere seeks up to C$7bn in Series E funding, Canada’s largest private capital raise

Canadian artificial‑intelligence start‑up Cohere has announced the initial close of a Series E funding round that could raise as much as C$7 billion, valuing the company at C$35.7 billion.

Chief executive and co‑founder Aidan Gomez described the round as “the largest private capital raise in Canadian history”. Cohere, headquartered in Toronto with operations in cities including San Francisco, London, New York, Berlin and Singapore, positions itself as a provider of sovereign AI for regulated industries and governments, allowing clients to own, operate and govern their AI systems.

The company said it has around 300 customers worldwide, among them Aston Martin Aramco, Bell Canada, Fujitsu, PwC and TD Bank. It plans to use the new capital to advance its modelling and product roadmap, develop vertical AI solutions for regulated sectors and invest in long‑term compute infrastructure, according to chief financial officer Francois Chadwick.

Funding commitments are led by the Schwarz Group, with new investors including Bell Ventures, Bullhound Capital and the Canadian government. Returning investors such as Inovia Capital, Nvidia and Prosperity7 Ventures also participated.

In a blog post on 29 October, co‑founders Gomez, Nicholas Frosst and Ivan Zhang said the money will help build a “frontier company outside the US and China” and support the development of secure, sovereign AI platforms.

Source: Silicon Republic. Photo: Pixabay / Pexels.