Schwarz Digits
Schwarz Group's IT and digital-services arm; runs STACKIT sovereign cloud and led Cohere's Series E.
Schwarz Digits, the Schwarz Group's technology arm, led a €500 million investment in Cohere's Series E round on 24 April 2026, ahead of Cohere's combination with Aleph Alpha.
Last refreshed: 22 September 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Timeline for Schwarz Digits
Committed to host the combined company's sovereign AI on STACKIT
European Tech Sovereignty: Aleph Alpha signs itself into CohereBackground
Schwarz Digits KG is the IT and digital-services division of Germany's Schwarz Group, the retail conglomerate that owns Lidl and Kaufland, based in Bad Friedrichshall. It was created in September 2023 as the group's fifth division, bringing together cloud computing under the STACKIT brand, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, communication and workplace technologies.
STACKIT is positioned as a European sovereign-cloud platform, which is the basis for Schwarz Digits' role as lead investor in Cohere's Series E round and as the intended cloud partner for the combined Cohere-Aleph Alpha business once its merger with Aleph Alpha closes.
It led Cohere's €500m funding round
Schwarz Digits committed €500 million as lead investor in Cohere's Series E round, announced on 24 April 2026, the same month Bloomberg and Axios reported, without confirmation from either company, that the round valued Cohere at around $20 billion.
Cohere and Aleph Alpha put their names to a merger agreement on 16 September 2026, closing out a disagreement over unpublished German shareholder-rights terms that had stalled talks since July. Once that deal closes, the combined business is set to run its sovereign AI workloads on STACKIT, Schwarz Digits' own cloud platform.
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