Cisco creates an investment fund in artificial intelligence

Cisco Investments, the venture investment division of the technology company, has announced the creation of a $1 billion artificial intelligence investment fundwith the aim of strengthening the startup ecosystem and expanding the development of safe and reliable Artificial Intelligence solutions.

“For more than 30 years, Cisco Investments has invested and partnered with hundreds of companies to drive innovation both within Cisco’s core architectures and in new strategic areas,” said Mark Patterson, Chief Strategy Officer at Cisco.

“We are well positioned to become the best strategic partner for customers looking to build, protect and power artificial intelligence. Additionally, Cisco is committed to investing in the broader AI ecosystem to even better meet the needs of our customers,” he adds.

Investments underway in artificial intelligence

Cisco notes that has made more than 20 acquisitions and investments focused on this technology in recent yearsboosting the capabilities of the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and the machine learning (machine learning), as well as the integration of artificial intelligence throughout its offer.

Through this new fund, the company is already making strategic investments in Cohere, Mistral AI and Scale AI, among other companies, in order to improve the preparation of clients for artificial intelligence and complete their innovation strategy in this technology.

In fact, the company assures that has already allocated almost $200 million from this investment fund to date.

Cohere is a startup with headquarters in Toronto (Canada) and San Francisco (California, United States). Offers security-focused large language models (LLMs) and recovery augmented generation capabilities (RAG, Retrieval-Augmented Generation) designed to meet the needs of companies.

Mistral AI is a French company, based in Paris. This startup is specialized in Gen AI for companiescombining scientific excellence with an open approach and a responsible vision of technology.

Scale AI, For its part, it is based in the United States. Provides a End-to-end data-centric platform that provides training and validation for AI applications.

Cisco recently participated in the Series F financing of this company, becoming the largest strategic investor in the round, as the startup said.

“The establishment of this investment fund aligns with our intention to advance the transformative power of artificial intelligence and its potential to redefine economic sectors globally,” said Derek Idemoto, senior vice president of Corporate Development and Investments at Cisco.

“It represents our unwavering commitment to artificial intelligence and innovation, and to the entrepreneurs and visionaries who are defining the next technological revolution,” he adds.

In addition to investments, Cisco will also work with artificial intelligence companies on product collaborations to co-innovate and reinforce its positioning as an agnostic supplier.

Other funds specialized in artificial intelligence

Cisco’s new investment fund will not be alone in its efforts to advance artificial intelligence. This technology is attracting many investors due to its growth potential and the almost infinite range of business opportunities it offers for startups.as we said in this article.

Some of these specialized funds are Accel Partners, Aglaé Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Armilar Venture Partners, Ataria Ventures, Baidu.Ventures, BootstrapLabs, Breyer Capital, Castel Capital, Daphni, DG Incubation, Felicis Ventures, Fusion Fund, FuturePerfect Ventures, Glilot Capital Partners, GV, Katapult Accelerator, Level Equity, M12, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Porsche Ventures, Project A, Red Capital Partners, Scale Capital, Serena Capital, Startmate, The Venture City, Union Square Ventures, UpWestLabs or Walden Venture Capital, among others .