Cohere, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup, has raised $270m in a Series C funding round to offer generative AI solutions to business customers.

The announcement confirms an earlier report about funding for the Canadian startup, which competes with companies such as OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

Inovia Capital led the funding round, which was joined by several other investors including DTCP, Mirae Asset, NVIDIA, Oracle, Salesforce Ventures, Schroders Capital, SentinelOne, Thomvest Ventures, and existing investor Index Ventures.

Cohere, which was set up in 2019, develops large language models (LLMs) for enterprises that they can use to deploy AI-powered solutions, such as chatbots and search engines, among others.

LLMs, which form the backbone of services such as ChatGPT, are AI models trained on enormous amounts of data to analyse and generate text when prompted.

Cohere CEO and co-founder Aidan Gomez said: “AI will be the heart that powers the next decade of business success. As the early excitement about generative AI shifts toward ways to accelerate businesses, companies are looking to Cohere to position them for success in a new era of technology. The next phase of AI products and services will revolutionise business, and we are ready to lead the way.”

The company did not disclose its valuation, but citing sources, Reuters reported that the funding valued it at $2.2bn.

In an interview with the news agency, Cohere president and COO Martin Kon said the proceeds will be used to bolster computing infrastructure and hiring.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said: “The team at Cohere has made foundational contributions to generative AI. Their service will help enterprises around the world harness these capabilities to automate and accelerate.”