Canada joins Nvidia in backing Cohere’s record C$7bn Series E

What happened

Cohere has completed the first close of its Series E (an early stage of company funding) round, which it aims to grow to as much as C$7bn.

Cohere announced the round on Thursday in a press release and a blog post by its three co-founders. It says the round is the largest private financing ever raised by a Canadian technology company.

Inovia Capital, Nvidia and Prosperity7 Ventures invested before. The Canadian government has agreed to invest up to $1.14bn, Rebecca Torrence and Laura Osman reported for Bloomberg . NVIDIA is a semiconductor company based in Santa Clara.

The Toronto AI company says that would value it at C$35.7bn. The Government of Canada is among the new investors.

Bloomberg puts its valuation at $20.5bn before the new money. “The most powerful AI systems are concentrated in a very small number of companies, in a very small number of countries,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said at a press conference on Thursday.

Who is putting money in The companies of Schwarz Group, a large European retailer, lead the Cohere Series E, having committed $600m earlier, Bloomberg reported. Bell Ventures, Bullhound Capital and the Government of Canada are new investors.