Cohere, a rival to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and an AI foundation model company, announced that it had raised $270 million in a funding round supported among others by Nvidia, Oracle, and Salesforce Ventures.
Foundation models are artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can learn from new data and perform a range of tasks after being trained on big datasets. Through computer code that has analyzed enormous quantities of data, generative AI aspires to produce objects that resemble humans.
After the most recent fundraising round, Cohere chose not to disclose its worth.
“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,” said CEO, Aidan Gomez.
Amid rising interest rates and a greater emphasis on profitability among investors, AI startups offer a ray of hope in the otherwise gloomy venture capital funding environment, particularly for technology companies.
Inovia Capital served as the lead investor in Cohere’s series C round, which also included participation from DTCP, Mirae Asset, Schroders Capital, SentinelOne, and Thomvest Ventures.
Investor interest in the technology that can produce text, images, or computer code at will has grown since ChatGPT was introduced in November.
Anthropic, a different AI business backed by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, also raised $450 million in a fresh round of funding last month.
