About
Ivan Zhang left the University of Toronto without finishing his degree to build things, and six years later co-owned an AI company valued at around $20 billion. In 2017 he founded FOR.AI, the independent research collective now known as Cohere Labs, where he worked alongside Geoffrey Hinton and the transformer co-inventors Lukasz Kaiser and Aidan Gomez. Two years later he co-founded Cohere in Toronto with Gomez and Nick Frosst, building large language models for regulated industries and the public sector on a sovereignty pitch: customers keep their data instead of handing it to American tech giants. Cohere raised roughly $1.6 billion, reached a $7 billion valuation in 2025 with about $240 million of annual recurring revenue, counts Royal Bank of Canada and Bell among its customers, and merged with Germany's Aleph Alpha in April 2026.
Beyond investing
- Education
- Left the University of Toronto without completing his degree to build companies.
- More
- Counts Royal Bank of Canada and Bell among Cohere's customers, sold on a sovereignty pitch: keep your data rather than route it through American tech giants.
From Ivan's own website — common ground for a warm intro.
Co-founder at Cohere
Intro paths
In turn, Ivan can intro founders to Cohere's investors below.
Cohere's investors · 22
Co-founders at Cohere
Frequently asked questions
- Where does Ivan Zhang work?
- Ivan Zhang is Co-founder at Cohere.
- What companies did Ivan Zhang found?
- Ivan Zhang founded Cohere.