Cohere opens Series E round targeting up to C$7 billion at C$35.7 billion valuation

The round and its investors

Cohere, a Toronto-based AI company, announced on 29 October the initial close of its Series E round, which could reach up to C$7 billion at a C$35.7 billion valuation. Schwarz Group, the owner of Lidl among other companies, leads the round, and its companies had committed $600 million earlier, according to Bloomberg. The Government of Canada, Bell Ventures and Bullhound Capital are new to the round, while Inovia Capital, Nvidia and Prosperity7 Ventures return as investors. The company did not specify what share of the target has already been pledged, though chief financial officer Francois Chadwick told Bloomberg that the first close covers "most of it". Bloomberg reports the full round could total as much as $5 billion and values Cohere at $20.5 billion before the new money, roughly three times its worth a year earlier.

Round target, up to7

Targeted valuation35.7

Round target, up to

7 C$ billion

Targeted valuation

35.7 C$ billion

Data from the article text

Ottawa's stake and the sovereignty argument

The Canadian contribution has been reported at two sizes: Bloomberg puts the government's investment at up to $1.14 billion, while POLITICO refers to Ottawa's C$1.6 billion investment. Carney spoke in Montreal on Thursday, ahead of the Canada-EU summit, and said Canada was making a commercial investment alongside private backers including Nvidia, Bell and Germany's Schwarz Group. He tied the stake to supply security and said the country would not wait for AI decisions to be made elsewhere by parties it does not know or trust. Carney also said, according to Bloomberg, that Cohere will keep its headquarters in Canada, and Cohere plans about $1.2 billion of computing infrastructure in the country by 2030.

“Sovereignty now requires secure access to semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean energy technology, vaccines, space-based communications and artificial intelligence.”

Gomez joined Carney at Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, for the Canadian part of the announcement and framed the investment in terms of national participation in the technology.

“We believe that artificial intelligence would become one of the defining technologies of this century, and that Canadians should help build it, shape it and benefit from it.”

Growth and customers

Cohere says annual recurring revenue grew 165% year over year at the end of Q3 2026, driven by new customers and expansion across commercial and public sector organizations. Its customer count rose 20 times over the past year, to 300. The release names Aston Martin Aramco, Bell Canada, Fujitsu, RBC, RWS, PwC, TD Bank and TKMS among its clients. Gomez said Cohere will add more than 1,000 roles, and the money will fund model development, verticalized products for regulated industries and compute capacity. Chadwick would not disclose revenue to Bloomberg and gave no details on whether a stock market listing is planned.

Canada-EU summit on Friday

Carney is scheduled to hold meetings on Friday, 30 October, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa. In a pre-summit speech on Thursday, von der Leyen cited April's multi-billion dollar merger between Cohere and German counterpart Aleph Alpha as a key piece of deepening cooperation. She said:

“Both Canada and Europe believe this technology should serve people. So we will work together to tackle head-on the safety and security issues of runaway AI.”

The summit takes place against economic threats from U.S. President Donald Trump toward both transatlantic partners, and Carney dismissed suggestions on Thursday that it could draw reprisals against the participants. Friday's talks are set to cover AI, including the rules, standards and global governance von der Leyen described.