Big vendors cash in on Cohere's AI platform as company announces $270m series C funding

A plethora of big vendors including NVIDIA and Oracle have funded Cohere’s platform with the aim of bringing AI to enterprise businesses

AI platform for enterprise Cohere has received $270m (£215m) in new capital as part of its Series C financing with several big vendors amongst investors.

Inovia Capital led the investment round, with additional participation from big players including NVIDIA, Oracle, Salesforce Ventures, DTCP, Mirae Asset, Schroders Capital, SentinelOne, Thomvest Ventures, and returning investor Index Ventures.

"AI will be the heart that powers the next decade of business success," said Aidan Gomez, CEO and co-founder of Cohere.

"As the early excitement about generative AI shifts toward ways to accelerate businesses, companies are looking to Cohere to position them for success in a new era of technology.

"The next phase of AI products and services will revolutionise business, and we are ready to lead the way."

The investments come after a Gartner report showed how "fear of missing out" is driving CEO to throw cash at AI.

Founder and CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang also commented saying: "We are at the beginning of a new era driven by accelerated computing and generative AI.

"The team at Cohere has made foundational contributions to generative AI.

"Their service will help enterprises around the world harness these capabilities to automate and accelerate."

AI built for enterprise

Cohere's AI platform is designed for enterprises and offers data-secure deployment options in companies' existing cloud environments, customisation, and customer support.

This includes an ecosystem of consulting and system integrator partners to help enterprises at any stage in their AI journey.

Cohere explained that its enterprise AI suite is cloud-agnostic, offering the highest levels of flexibility and data privacy.

The platform is built to be available on every cloud provider, deployed inside a customers' existing cloud environment, virtual private cloud (VPC), or even on-site, to meet companies where their data is.

This will empower businesses to transform existing products and build the next era-defining generation of innovative solutions all while keeping their data secure, Cohere claims.

"Our entire raison d'être is to invest in great entrepreneurs who have great worldwide mission and ambitions," said Steve Woods, CTO and partner at Inovia Capital.

"Very few ideas can fundamentally change society and add more value to humankind.

"This is obviously one such opportunity and we are thrilled to partner with Cohere to be a part of it."

The news comes on the heels of Cohere's momentum in expansion such as through a collaboration with Salesforce Ventures to advance generative AI to realise business value and an engagement with LivePerson to supercharge customer experiences.