Canada takes an equity stake of up to C$1.6 billion in Cohere, and closes a digital trade deal with the EU

Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday in Montreal that Ottawa will invest up to C$1.6 billion in Cohere, the Toronto model maker, as part of a Series E round targeting up to C$7 billion at nearly C$36 billion post-money. Germany's Schwarz Group, a major shareholder in Aleph Alpha, is leading; Nvidia, Inovia and Prosperity7 return, and Bell Ventures and Bullhound Capital join. The money goes through the Canada Development Investment Corporation, a Crown corporation, in stages tied to milestones. Cohere commits to stay headquartered in Canada, spend C$1.7 billion on Canadian computing by 2030 and add more than 1,000 technical jobs.

The next day, at the EU summit in the same city, the two sides said substantive negotiations on a digital trade agreement were finished and that they would work toward mutual recognition of AI conformity assessments and reciprocal access to each other's cloud and AI markets. Cohere's merger with Aleph Alpha is still not complete. At the round's price the government stake is about 4.5% of the company, by our arithmetic, which buys a seat at the table and no control. SourcesBBB

Sources

• BCanada to invest up to $1.6 billion in AI firm Cohere (BetaKit)betakit.com
• BOttawa investing up to $1.6B in Canadian AI company Cohere (CP24, not opened)cp24.com
• BDigital trade, competition ties deepen under new EU-Canada alliance (MLex)mlex.com

This story ran in the Morning Brief of November 2nd 2026.