Cisco Investments, the global corporate venture investment arm of Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), launched a $1B AI investment fund to bolster the startup ecosystem and expand the development of secure and reliable AI solutions.
As part of the new AI fund, Cisco is making strategic investments to advance customers’ AI readiness and complement its AI innovation strategy. The tech company has already committed nearly $200M of the $1B 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.
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 its portfolio. In addition to these investments, the company will also be working with AI companies on product collaborations that allow them to co-innovate, while also being an agnostic provider and platform player in AI, offering options and coverage for its global customer base.
