Cisco Investments, the global corporate venture investment arm of Cisco, has launched a $1 billion AI investment fund to bolster the startup ecosystem.
As part of the new AI fund, Cisco is making strategic investments in Cohere, Mistral AI and Scale AI among others to advance customers’ AI readiness and complement Cisco’s AI innovation strategy.
Cisco has already committed nearly $200 million of the $1 billion investment fund to date.
The committed investments in the new AI fund include:
Cohere: Headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, Cohere provides security-focused frontier large language models (LLMs) and industry-leading Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) capabilities tailored to meet the needs of enterprises.
Mistral AI: Mistral AI is a global company headquartered in Paris specializing in generative artificial intelligence. The company develops new models of generative artificial intelligence for businesses, combining scientific excellence, an open approach and a responsible vision of technology.
Scale AI: Based in the U.S., Scale AI provides a data-centric, end-to-end platform providing training and validation for AI applications. Cisco recently participated in Scale AI’s Series F funding as the round’s largest strategic investor.
“Our recent investments in generative AI companies align perfectly with this long-standing strategy,” said Mark Patterson, Chief Strategy Officer, Cisco. “At Cisco, we believe we are well positioned to be the best strategic partner for our customers in the AI era as they look to build, secure, and power AI.”
Over the past several years, Cisco has made over 20 AI-focused acquisitions and investments, furthering GenAI and Machine Learning capabilities and integration of AI across the Cisco portfolio.
