Canada's Cohere and Germany's Aleph Alpha have signed a definitive merger agreement to create a combined enterprise AI company valued at $20 billion. Operating under the Cohere brand with dual headquarters in Toronto and Berlin, the entity aims to meet growing demand for secure, sovereign AI systems. German retailer Schwarz Group is investing €500 million in the merger and will provide computing capacity through its cloud arm STACKIT, which is undergoing an €11 billion to €13 billion data-center expansion.
Cohere-Aleph Alpha merger agreement
- ▪Cohere Inc. reported $240 million in annual recurring revenue last year, while Aleph Alpha GmbH reported revenue of less than 1 million euros in 2023
- ▪The combined company resulting from the merger agreement signed on September 16 by Cohere Inc. and Aleph Alpha GmbH is reportedly valued at approximately $20 billion
- ▪Canadian artificial intelligence startup Cohere Inc. and German artificial intelligence startup Aleph Alpha GmbH signed a definitive merger agreement on September 16, 2026
Enterprise AI market positioning
- ▪Cohere Inc. develops Command, a family of open-source large language models designed to run inside a customer's own computing environment for enterprise and government markets
- ▪Aleph Alpha GmbH has stepped back from developing frontier AI models to focus on AI integration software, helping governments and businesses deploy artificial intelligence
European AI funding landscape
- ▪European artificial intelligence company Mistral raised €3 billion at a valuation of more than €21 billion in September 2026
- ▪Aleph Alpha GmbH, which has raised about $126 million in venture funding, was previously considered Germany's primary artificial intelligence champion
Debatable claims
- ▪Aleph Alpha's merger under the Cohere brand undermines European AI independence
- ▪The Canadian government should invest $3 billion in the merged Cohere
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