TORONTO — Cohere president Martin Kon is stepping down from his position weeks after the AI firm raised US$500 million in new financing, The Logic has learned.

Kon will keep his seat on the board of the Toronto-based startup, and move into “an advisory role,” said Josh Gartner, Cohere’s head of communications. 

Cohere had discussed the possibility of Kon leaving his position with investors, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. The Logic granted the sources anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. 

Gartner said Kon decided to step away from his role, having led Cohere through three large raises over the last two years. Earlier this month, the firm announced it had secured fresh funding at a US$6.8-billion valuation. The Toronto-based firm has raised more than US$1.5 billion in total.

Kon will remain involved in daily operations, and take the new title of senior advisor, the firm said.

Kon joined Cohere in February 2023 from YouTube, where he had been chief financial officer. 

He also held the title of chief operating officer at Cohere and is currently an advisor to private equity firm KKR and venture capital fund Akkadian Ventures. Kon was previously a partner at Boston Consulting Group and Oliver Wyman. 

Alongside its recent capital raise, Cohere has also made several leadership changes. The firm named former Meta research head Joelle Pineau as its first chief AI officer to oversee research and advise on product development. Sara Hooker, who oversaw Cohere Labs, the firm’s non-profit research arm, will leave the firm next month.

Cohere has also appointed a new CFO in Francois Chadwick, a San Francisco-based executive who was most recently a partner at KPMG, and previously served as Uber’s global head of tax and accounting. BetaKit reported that Cohere had promoted Phil Blunsom from chief scientist to CTO, replacing Saurabh Baji, who left the firm. The firm has hired executives to lead sales in Korea and Japan. 

Cohere is led by Gomez and his co-founders Nick Frosst and Ivan Zhang. 

Kon oversaw revenue and fundraising at Cohere, and was involved in meetings with key clients and investors. Alongside Cohere’s co-founders, he was also one of the company’s public faces, representing it on business panels as well as at tech conferences and in meetings with policymakers.

Cohere sells its LLMs and agent-builder system North to big businesses in highly regulated sectors like banking and telecom. Clients include RBC, Bell, the Saudi Arabian telecom company STC Group, and U.S. hospital software developer Ensemble Health Partners. 

Cohere’s investors include major Canadian venture capital firms Radical Ventures and Inovia Capital, which co-led its most recent investment round; pension funds PSP Investments and the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan; chip giants AMD and Nvidia; and tech firms Oracle and Salesforce.