Cohere beats $240M revenue target with 50% growth, setting stage for IPO against OpenAI

Cohere's $240M year sets stage for IPO | TechCrunch

As the top AI labs like Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI chase enterprise adoption, Canadian AI startup Cohere has been quietly cleaning up. The startup told investors in a memo that it surpassed its $200 million annual recurring revenue target in 2025, hitting $240 million with quarter-over-quarter growth of more than 50% throughout the year, per CNBC. Cohere was founded in 2019 and has the backing of enterprise tech investors like Nvidia, AMD, and Salesforce. The startup's core tech is its Command family of generative AI models, which Cohere says are efficient enough to be deployed on limited GPUs -- an attractive promise for enterprises looking to get a handle on cost and resource management. Last summer, Cohere launched North, a higher-level enterprise platform and AI workspace for secure, custom AI agents and workflows built on Cohere's models. Cohere's CEO Aidan Gomez said last October that the startup may IPO "soon." If "soon" means in 2026, Cohere may be contending against OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX/xAI, which are all reportedly weighing their own public debuts. TechCrunch has reached out to Cohere for comment.

Enterprise AI startup Cohere tops revenue target as momentum builds to IPO: Investor memo

Cohere hit roughly $240 million in annual recurring revenue last year, surpassing its $200 million target, according to a February investor memo viewed by CNBC. It saw quarter-over-quarter growth of more than 50% throughout 2025, the memo said. "Our thesis is clearly resonating in the market," the company wrote. "Our sales pipeline continues to grow as global organizations across regulated sectors choose Cohere as their trusted partner for secure AI adoption at scale." Founded in Toronto in 2019, Cohere develops models and builds software tools for businesses. The company is backed by investors including Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures, and its valuation has swelled to roughly $7 billion. Cohere's investor memo comes after CEO Aidan Gomez said in October that the startup hopes to make its public market debut "soon." He told Bloomberg that he thinks investors would welcome a "pure play AI investment opportunity." But Cohere's competitors OpenAI and Anthropic are also weighing potential IPOs, according to people familiar with the companies' thinking. And they have not been shy about their ambitions to win in the enterprise market.

Nvidia-backed Cohere beats revenue target for 2025

Cohere achieved about $240M in annual recurring revenue in 2025, surpassing its target of $200M, CNBC reported, citing a February investor memo. The Canadian AI startup -- which builds large language models, or LLMs, and customizes them for businesses -- saw quarter-over-quarter growth of more than Cohere's capital-efficient model lets customers run models on managed cloud or their own hardware, reducing high infrastructure costs and allowing more investment in customer acquisition and R&D. Cohere exceeded its $200M revenue target with $240M annual recurring revenue and achieved about 70% gross margins, expanding 25 basis points year-over-year. Cohere plans rapid European expansion, AI agent platform development, and is considering a near-term public market debut while competing with OpenAI and Anthropic for enterprise clientele.