On Tuesday, French startup Mistral announced it secured 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in new funding, with Samsung as a backer, raising the company’s valuation to 21 billion euros.
The company aims to establish itself as a European contender to rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
The investment included the European Union-backed Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, along with existing investor PSG Equity. Mistral said the funding values the company at over 21 billion euros post-money.
Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral, said in an interview, “Long term, the plan is to fully rely on capacity that we are building ourselves, and so that means that the amount of compute that we own is going to grow … around 100% in the next five years.” The CEO added that the company will train “bigger and faster models.”
“We’re very confident that the fundraising we are doing today is also accelerating and enabling further growth down the line in 2027.”
Mensch said it’s hard for European companies to rely on long-term support for Chinese models. “At this point in time, we are seeing that the volatility in this space is actually quite extreme… Now we also need to be a trusted partner for our customers, and they want us to be sure to certify that in one year from now they will get access to better models than they have access to today, and the only way we can provide that guarantee is by continuing to train our models ourselves,”
The valuation comes as Mistral positions itself as a non-U.S. and non-Chinese option in the AI sector, aligning with increasing demand from Europe and other areas for “sovereign AI.”
Investors in the Scaleup Europe Fund include the European Commission along with prominent companies like Novo Holdings and Santander.
Mistral was valued at 11.7 billion euros a year ago, after a funding round led by Dutch chip equipment maker ASML.
By CEO NA Editorial Staff
