Cohere in talks to raise up to $3B at $20B valuation, a 60-100x revenue multiple vs OpenAI's ~30x
Afinetheorem · x · 2026-09-12
Cohere is in advanced talks to raise $2-3 billion from the Canadian government and existing backers at a $20 billion valuation — the largest round ever for a private Canadian startup, per The Globe and Mail, possibly closing next week.
Afinetheorem flags a pattern: OpenAI and Ant's IPO projections trade at roughly 30x revenue, while Cohere's round and Mistral's recent one sit at 60-100x, with local government investors playing a large role — even though these are enterprise services companies, not frontier model labs. He notes government involvement is distortionary but may reflect aligned revenue and spillover/risk-hedging value.
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