Aisle

AI · Cybersecurity

Acquisition

Cohere to Acquire Prague-Based AI Cybersecurity Startup Aisle

Its co-founders include Avast's former CEO, giving Cohere instant credibility in automated vulnerability research.

• Cohere signed a letter of intent to acquire Prague-based Aisle, with the startup's roughly 50 employees joining to form a new division called Cohere Cyber.
• Founded in 2024, Aisle builds autonomous AI systems that discover, validate and help remediate previously unknown vulnerabilities in production software, claiming over 500 vulnerabilities found across 100-plus codebases in its first year.
• Aisle CEO Ondřej Vlček, the former Avast chief executive, will lead Cohere Cyber as SVP; co-founder Jaya Baloo becomes Cohere's global CISO and Stanislav Fort takes over AI security as VP. Financial terms were not disclosed.
• The deal follows Cohere's acquisition of Reliant AI and its planned merger with Germany's Aleph Alpha, deepening its European footprint as it builds a 'sovereign AI' platform positioned outside US and Chinese model dominance.
• The acquisition landed the same week Cohere closed the initial tranche of a Series E targeting up to CAD $7 billion ($5 billion) at a CAD $35.7 billion valuation, led by Schwarz Group with Canada's government as an investor.
• The deal signals that automated vulnerability discovery and patching are becoming built-in features of frontier AI platforms rather than standalone security products, as model makers race to own the full security stack.