Aleph Alpha GmbH

What does Aleph Alpha do?

Aleph Alpha builds sovereign AI models and the PhariaAI enterprise platform for European companies and governments that require data control and explainability.

Is Aleph Alpha publicly traded?

No. Aleph Alpha is a privately held GmbH. Its agreed merger with Cohere, a private company, does not create a public listing.

Who founded Aleph Alpha?

Jonas Andrulis and Samuel Weinbach founded the company in Heidelberg in 2019. Andrulis previously led AI research at SAP.

Where is Aleph Alpha headquartered?

The company is headquartered at Speyerer Strasse 14 in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The site will remain a research center after the Cohere merger closes.

Who owns Aleph Alpha?

Aleph Alpha is owned by its founders and investors including Schwarz Group, Bosch Ventures, SAP, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Upon completion of the Cohere merger, these shareholders will hold stakes in the combined company.

Did Cohere acquire Aleph Alpha?

The transaction is structured as a merger. A definitive agreement was signed September 16, 2026, valuing the combined company at roughly $20 billion. It was pending regulatory approval as of October 1, 2026.

Jonas Andrulis and Samuel Weinbach founded the company in Heidelberg in 2019. Andrulis, a former SAP AI researcher, set out to build European-owned frontier AI as American and Chinese labs pulled ahead.

The company raised €5.3 million in seed funding in 2020 and €23 million in a 2021 round backed by European venture firms. It shipped multimodal capabilities early, allowing prompts combining text and images.

In November 2023, Aleph Alpha raised more than $500 million in a round led by a consortium including Schwarz Group, Bosch Ventures, and SAP. The round, announced at a roughly $500 million-plus scale, made it Germany's best-funded AI startup and a core piece of the country's AI sovereignty strategy.

The company pivoted in 2024 and 2025 from pure frontier model research toward PhariaAI, an enterprise operating system, acknowledging that competing with OpenAI-scale training budgets was unsustainable. Revenue and headcount grew modestly; the company employed roughly 320 people by 2026.

On September 16, 2026, Aleph Alpha signed a definitive merger agreement with Cohere. The combined company operates under the Cohere name with headquarters in Toronto and Berlin. Heidelberg remains a research center. The transaction was subject to regulatory approvals as of October 1, 2026.