TORONTO — Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere has signed a deal with Germany’s Aleph Alpha in a bid to create an independent alternative to global tech giants dominating the field.
The firms did not reveal the financial terms or structure of their agreement announced early Friday morning.
They, however, said their proposed combined entity will use the Cohere name and be “anchored in” Germany and Canada, if Aleph Alpha shareholders approve the deal.
Cohere co-founder and CEO Aidan Gomez positioned the move as a way for both AI companies to combine their strengths and accelerate their expansion.
“Organizations globally are demanding uncompromising control over their AI stack,” he said, referencing the term for the collection of tools companies use to support their tech infrastructure.
“This transatlantic partnership unlocks the massive scale, robust infrastructure, and world-class research and development talent required to meet that demand.”
Together, the companies say they will aim to deliver a secure alternative for customized AI in highly regulated sectors.
They’ll have the backing of Aleph Alpha shareholder Schwarz Group, which committed to investing 500 million euros (almost $801.5 million) as the lead investor in an upcoming financing round for the new Cohere.
Toronto-based Cohere was born in 2019 and is focused on developing AI systems for businesses like Royal Bank of Canada, Salesforce and Oracle.
Aleph Alpha was started the same year and also plays in the enterprise AI space, working with clients like Deutsche Bank, Bosch and SAP.
In addition to Gomez, Cohere also calls Ivan Zhang and Nick Frosst co-founders. Asked who will make up the company’s new executive ranks, Cohere did not say as of Friday morning.
Cohere attracted initial attention because Gomez co-authored a research paper at the age of 20 about the then-novel concept of the transformer — a facet of language processing that can identify relationships between sequential data like words in a sentence.
In the years since, the company has garnered funding from tech heavyweights Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Pieter Abbeel and Raquel Urtasun.
It’s also seen heaps of praise and opportunities from politicians. In 2024, the federal government invested up to $240 million in Cohere and last summer, it signed an agreement with the firm to identify areas where AI can enhance the public service.
The Aleph Alpha deal comes a few months after AI Minister Evan Solomon visited Germany to commit Canada to the Sovereign Technology Alliance, which was meant to deepen their AI capacity.
Solomon said Friday’s announcement is “a big moment for Canadian AI,” proving the country “is not just producing world-class AI ideas. We are building world-class AI companies.”
“This partnership strengthens Canada’s position in the global AI economy and shows how trusted allies can work together to build sovereign AI capacity,” he said in a statement.
The deal with Aleph Alpha arrives as Cohere has been edging toward going public. Gomez said last year that Cohere would make the move “soon,” but the company has never offered a more precise timeline.
While Cohere has several global offices, Canada has always been its epicentre and its co-founders have repeatedly encouraged other entrepreneurs to build in the country rather than other tech hubs like Silicon Valley in the U.S.
During a June talk at the inaugural Toronto Tech Week, Gomez revealed Cohere had a nine-figure acquisition offer it was “very close” to taking years ago. He said he was glad Cohere turned the offer down and added the company is “not for sale.”
“Any sort of exit that would take us out of Canada is only if we fail — and we haven’t failed,” Gomez said.
“We’re still growing super quickly, so I think acquisition is failure.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2026.
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
