Cohere to acquire Aleph Alpha with $600M backing from Schwarz Group

Canadian AI startup Cohere is taking over Germany-based Aleph Alpha with support from Schwarz Group, the parent company of grocery chain Lidl. The deal includes approximately 500 million euros in structured financing from the retail giant, which will become a strategic backer of the combined entity. Last valued at $6.8 billion, Cohere will lead the new entity that will incorporate Aleph Alpha, subject to approval by authorities and shareholders. According to German business media outlet Handelsblatt, the term sheet anchors Cohere's valuation at around $20 billion in its Series E round. The companies intend to offer a sovereign alternative to enterprises in an AI landscape dominated by American players. The new entity plans to target highly-regulated industries including defense, energy, finance, healthcare, manufacturing and telecommunications, as well as the public sector. Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said Aleph Alpha's focus on small language models, European languages and tokenizers is complementary to Cohere's general focus on large language models. The press conference announcing the plans featured German digital minister Karsten Wildberger and his Canadian counterpart Evan Solomon, reflecting government support for the deal. Amid growing tensions with the United States, Canada and Germany recently launched a Sovereign Technology Alliance to strengthen sovereign AI capacity and reduce strategic technology dependencies.