Cohere Inc.

What does Cohere do?

Cohere builds enterprise large language models and a secure deployment platform called North. Its Command model family targets regulated industries that need private, controlled AI deployments.

Is Cohere publicly traded?

No. Cohere is privately held. It has raised approximately $2.3 billion in venture funding and was valued near $7 billion before the September 2026 Aleph Alpha merger agreement.

Who founded Cohere?

Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, and Nick Frosst founded Cohere in Toronto in 2019. Gomez co-authored the 2017 transformer paper "Attention Is All You Need."

Where is Cohere headquartered?

Cohere is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. After the Aleph Alpha merger closes, the combined company will operate dual headquarters in Toronto and Berlin.

Who owns Cohere?

Cohere is owned by its founders, employees, and investors including Radical Ventures, Inovia Capital, NVIDIA, Oracle, and Salesforce Ventures. After the merger, Aleph Alpha's shareholders will join the combined register.

Did Cohere merge with Aleph Alpha?

Yes. The companies signed a definitive merger agreement on September 16, 2026, valuing the combined group at roughly $20 billion. The transaction was pending regulatory approval as of October 1, 2026.

Gomez, Ivan Zhang, and Nick Frosst founded Cohere in Toronto in 2019. Gomez and Frosst had worked at Google Brain under Geoffrey Hinton; Zhang collaborated with Gomez at the FOR.ai research collective. All three attended the University of Toronto.

The company raised Series A through Series D rounds between 2021 and 2025, collecting nearly $1 billion in its early years. Investors included Radical Ventures, Inovia Capital, NVIDIA, Oracle, Salesforce Ventures, and PSP Investments. A $500 million round in August 2025 valued the company at approximately $6.8 to 7 billion.

Revenue growth accelerated in 2025 and 2026. Reported annualized revenue reached $100 million in May 2025, $150 million by October 2025, and roughly $240 million by February 2026, driven by enterprise contracts and the North platform.

On September 16, 2026, Cohere and Aleph Alpha signed a definitive merger agreement. The deal valued the combined company at roughly $20 billion, making it one of the largest AI consolidations to date. The combined entity keeps dual headquarters in Toronto and Berlin, retains Aleph Alpha's Heidelberg research site, and awaits regulatory approval.

Cohere faced a 2023 lawsuit from a group of publishers over training data, one of many copyright actions across the industry. The company has argued its enterprise focus and licensing approach distinguish it from consumer-scraping practices. The matter followed the standard path of unresolved AI copyright litigation as of late 2026.