Cohere is an AI company that focuses on large language models (LLMs) for business. Their software helps machines read, interpret, and generate text, making it easier for computers to interact with humans through language. The company offers an API platform that allows developers to use pre-made and build their own custom models based on Cohere's existing work.
The company develops Natural Language Processing (NLP) models tailored for enterprises. This allows them to integrate NLP capabilities into their applications without having to build their own models, saving time and resources.
Cohere's software, trained on big data, is capable of analyzing text and creating new content. For example, to form product descriptions, review documents, and communicate with clients in chatbot format. More specialized models are also available – e.g. for search on a particular site.
The system can be deployed on the basis of any cloud infrastructure via API: a client's existing cloud environment or a virtual private cloud. For companies with individual requirements, Cohere offers fine-tuning of its models, including training on provided data sets.
With Cohere's AI model ecosystem, any company can build NLP-powered solutions that deliver content flow. CEO, Aiden Gomez: “We know the market will need an independent platform, not tied to any of the hyperscalers, to enable enterprises to adopt this technology in a way that is extremely data-private and secure.”
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Streamlined Human-Computer Interaction. Cohere seeks to make interactions between humans and computers seamless.
Unlocking Unstructured Data. Cohere aims to help organizations harness the potential of unstructured data (like text and images), which makes up a significant portion of data but is challenging to analyze. The company uses Natural Language Processing to extract meaning and structure from this data, making it more valuable.
Venturing into Computer Vision. Cohere is exploring the integration of visual elements into language models.
The demand for AI-powered solutions is increasing across all industries due to the rapid development of deep learning and NLP technologies. A survey by Expert.ai in late 2022 found that 77% of companies using NLP solutions were planning to increase investment going forward.
The AI market is showing explosive growth. Reports from research companies are staggering in numbers.
Cohere's Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is projected to be $45M by the end of 2023. The company has raised a total of $440M in funding.
Google, Oracle, NVIDIA, Salesforce, Inovia Capital, Index Ventures, Tiger Global are among Cohere’s investors. Notable figures in the AI industry, such as Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the “Godfather of AI,” along with esteemed experts like Stanford computer scientist Fei-Fei Li, Berkeley's Pieter Abbeel, and the University of Toronto's Raquel Urtasun, have also chosen to invest in Cohere.
In its latest funding round in June 2023, the company reached a valuation of $2.1B, or $95.82 per share. Just a month later, consulting firm SAP made an undisclosed investment in Cohere as part of a broader commitment to generative AI startups.
In August 2023, Tiger Global divested a 2.1% stake it held in Cohere for $63M, signifying that Cohere's valuation had surged to $3B.
Aiden Gomez (CEO): in 2017, Gomez, a former Google intern, worked with a team of researchers on a paper called “Attention Is All You Need.” They introduced a new neural network technique called the transformer, aiming to understand connections within lengthy data strings. The transformer had a far-reaching impact on Google's product portfolio. Aiden is one of the pioneers of Large Language Models.
Martin Kon, COO: former YouTube CFO and BCG Senior Partner.
Jaron Waldman, CPO: serial entrepreneur, worked in Rakuten and Apple.
Aaron Pugh, VP Sales: former Global Head of Sales for reCAPTCHA Enterprise & Web Risk.
Rajan Sheth, VP Marketing: scaled Heroku to Salesforce exit and Box to IPO.
Company-specific risks
Rising competition. Cohere faces increasing competition from several players, including OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic, Adept AI, Inflection, and Hugging Face. The rising competition could adversely affect the results of operations.
Cohere is exposed to the AI market. If this market grows slower than anticipated, the business results of Cohere will be negatively affected.