Cohere, a rival to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and an AI foundation model company, announced on Thursday that it had secured $270 million in a series C funding round from a group of investors that included Nvidia, Oracle, and Salesforce Ventures.
According to Martin Kon, Cohere will use the additional funding to hire staff members and buy computing equipment. The funding round was led by a group of investors that included the Canadian company Inovia Capital as well as DTCP, Schroders Capital, SentinelOne, Mirae Asset, and Thomvest Ventures.
The long-rumored funding for the Toronto-based AI startup, which focuses on developing AI models for business clients, was verified by the release. Cohere did not provide its valuation, but according to those with knowledge of the situation, it is worth $2.2 billion.
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Cohere has been pushing itself to be a neutral provider allowing businesses to utilize models that are not bound to cloud providers like Microsoft. Cohere is managed by former top AI experts at Alphabet’s Google.
“We’re self-sufficient. We didn’t and wouldn’t accept a sizable payment from a single firm, particularly not from a single cloud provider, because we believe that would prevent us from acting in the best interests of our company and our business customers,” said Martin Kon, president of Cohere.
