Cohere, a Toronto-based AI startup, has raised $500 million in a Series D funding round, lifting its valuation to $6.8 billion.
The round was led by Radical Ventures and Inovia Capital, with participation from AMD Ventures, Nvidia, PSP Investments, Salesforce Ventures, and the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.
The funding will accelerate Cohere’s development of agentic AI products designed to automate routine tasks, allowing employees to focus on more complex and creative work.
The company also plans to expand its team, which has grown from 250 employees at the start of 2024, aiming to double headcount this year.
Alongside the financing, Cohere announced key leadership additions. Joelle Pineau, formerly vice president of AI research at Meta, joins as chief AI officer, while Francois Chadwick, with experience at Uber and KPMG, becomes chief financial officer.
Founded in 2019 by alumni of Google Brain, Cohere competes with major US AI firms, such as OpenAI, Google, and Elon Musk’s xAI, but focuses exclusively on business clients.
Cohere has recently expanded partnerships with companies including the Royal Bank of Canada, Fujitsu, LG, Oracle, and Dell.
The company has also doubled its annual recurring revenue to $100 million so far in 2025, targeting $200 million by year-end.
Recent product launches include North, a platform for AI agents that perform online tasks independently while keeping data secure, and the upgraded Command R+ large-language model, integrated with Microsoft’s Azure AI catalogue.