Cohere acquires Aisle startup and adds cybersecurity to AI group
October 19, 2026 · 2 min read
Cohere has signed a letter of intent to acquire Aisle, a cybersecurity startup based in San Francisco that utilizes artificial intelligence to detect vulnerabilities in software. The announcement was made on October 15, 2026.
This acquisition adds cybersecurity capabilities to the group that the Canadian company is forming through its merger with German company Aleph Alpha, a combination valued at approximately US$ 20 billion. The financial terms of the acquisition of Aisle have not been disclosed.
In addition to enhancing security, this deal expands Cohere's presence in Europe. Aisle operates an engineering hub in Prague, which extends the operational base of the group on the continent. The company states that the acquisition reflects its ongoing investment in the region and strengthens the European AI ecosystem.
The objective of this operation is to reinforce the security and threat detection capabilities of the combined group for corporate clients and the public sector, with an option for private deployment in the clients' own systems.
Cohere stated, "More capable AI systems are transforming both cybersecurity and the threats that organizations face, and defensive capabilities must advance at the same speed."
Aisle was founded in 2025 by Ondrej Vlcek, the former CEO of Czech antivirus manufacturer Avast, along with co-founders who have backgrounds at Google DeepMind and Anthropic. With the completion of the deal, Vlcek will lead the new cybersecurity unit at Cohere. Aisle's Chief Operating Officer, Jaya Baloo, will become the Chief Information Security Officer of the company. The 50 full-time employees of the startup will also join Cohere's workforce.
In its first year of operations, Aisle's technology identified more than 500 new bugs in widely used software. Among the findings were 12 vulnerabilities in OpenSSL, a free program that encrypts internet traffic for banks, governments, and messaging applications. The flaws were addressed following their discovery.