Ed Elson

Welcome to First Time Founders.

I'm Ed Elson.

Artificial intelligence has become one of the most heavily funded sectors in the world.

More than 30 startups have raised over $100 million this year alone.

As AI becomes more embedded in how the world operates, a handful of firms have emerged as the key players behind that transformation.

Among them...

is a company building the kind of AI most people don't see.

That is the AI that is powering the systems that run businesses and governments.

Founded in 2019 by three former Google engineers, this company has focused squarely on the enterprise market, developing large language models for clients like Dell, SAP, and Salesforce.

It even recently signed a deal with Canada's government to bring its technology into public operations.

Now valued at nearly $7 billion,

It has earned a place alongside giants like OpenAI and Anthropic, helping define what the next era of AI will actually look like.

This is my conversation with Nick Frost, co-founder of Cohere.

All right, Nick Frost, good to have you on the program.

Thanks for having me.

So for those who don't know what Cohere is, I think we should probably just start there.

What is Cohere?

What does Cohere do?

What are you guys building in AI?

So we're a foundational model company.