AI Startup Cohere Acquires Ottogrid to Enhance Market Research Capabilities
Cohere, a leading AI startup, has acquired Ottogrid, a Vancouver-based platform that develops enterprise tools for automating high-level market research. This move is expected to significantly enhance Cohere’s capabilities in the market research sector.
Background of the Acquisition
The acquisition was announced by Sully Omar, one of the founders of Ottogrid, in a post on X. Although the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Omar expressed his excitement about joining the Cohere team and integrating Ottogrid into Cohere’s platform. As a result of the acquisition, Ottogrid will sunset its product, but customers will be given ample notice and a reasonable transition period.
Impact on Cohere
The acquisition comes at a time when Cohere is experiencing some corporate turbulence. According to The Information, Cohere fell short of its revenue projections for 2023, missing its target by 85%. However, the company has recently announced that its annualized revenue has reached $100 million, following a strategic shift towards private AI deployments for customers in sectors like healthcare, government, and finance.
About Ottogrid
Ottogrid was launched in 2023 as Cognosys, led by Omar and Homam Malkawi. The company rebranded in October 2024 with a major platform redesign that introduced new integrations, tools, and APIs. Ottogrid’s platform offers a native table interface with AI-powered document analysis capabilities, allowing customers to extract data from websites and save it directly to spreadsheets or automatically enrich sales lead lists.
Future Plans
As part of Cohere, Ottogrid will focus primarily on North, Cohere’s recently launched ChatGPT-style application designed to assist knowledge workers with tasks such as summarizing documents. Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez expressed his excitement about bringing the Ottogrid team aboard and incorporating Ottogrid’s product directly into North. This move is expected to bring enterprises a new way to tackle research with smart tables, making employees’ day-to-day work more enjoyable and productive.
Conclusion
The acquisition of Ottogrid by Cohere is a significant move in the AI startup space. With Ottogrid’s capabilities in automating high-level market research, Cohere is poised to enhance its market research capabilities and provide more value to its customers. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how this acquisition plays out and what benefits it brings to Cohere and its customers.
