Lifted in toto from TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance, September 3:
The grow up so fast.French AI startup Mistral AI is finalizing a €2 billion investment at a post-money valuation of $14 billion, reports Bloomberg, positioning the company as one of Europe’s most valuable tech startups. The two-year-old OpenAI rival, founded by former DeepMind and Meta researchers, develops open source language models and Le Chat, its AI chatbot built for European audiences.
Mistral isn’t commenting on the report, but the round would represent Mistral’s first major raise since June 2024, when it was valued at €5.8 billion. The company has previously raised over €1 billion from prominent investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.
The investment comes as European AI startups gain unprecedented momentum. European AI companies secured 55% more year-on-year investment in Q1 2025, according to Dealroom, with 12 European startups achieving unicorn status in the first half of the year. Also leading this surge is Sweden’s Lovable, an AI coding platform that reached a $1.8 billion valuation in July just eight months after its launch.
Previously:
June 2023 - French Tech: "Mistral AI secures €105M in Europe’s largest-ever seed round"
"...Big Tech Alumni building AI startups in Paris"
"France's unicorn start-up Mistral AI embodies its artificial intelligence hopes"
French OpenAI Rival Mistral Nears $2 Billion Valuation With Andreessen Horowitz Backing
This. This is what we've been pitching for the last five years as the way France picks up the economic torch from Germany....
AI to See ‘Major Second Wave,’ NVIDIA CEO Says in Fireside Chat With iliad Group Exec
NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang says sovereign AI a growing need for countries to reflect unique cultural, linguistic, industrial characteristics
European startups will get a massive boost from a new generation of AI infrastructure, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said Friday in a fireside chat with iliad Group Deputy CEO Aude Durand — and it’s coming just in time....
February 2024 - FrenchTech: "Mistral AI's Bold Journey"
A couple indications of just how fast Mistral is coming along.
March 2024 - FrenchTech: Mistral AI Is Cutting Deals Right and Left
Some adroit, some gauche.We've already looked at the end-of-February Microsoft hook-up "FrenchTech: "Critics question Microsoft's deal with Mistral AI, as EU set to look into it".
June 2024 - France's "Mistral AI warns of lack of data centres and training capacity in Europe"
June 13's Bloomberg story French Tech: "Mistral Fundraises at €5.8 Billion Valuation to Rival OpenAI" continued after the jump:
...France has become a European hotspot for AI development, tapping investor interest and local talent from tech companies such as Google’s DeepMind, who have gone on to found their own startups....It looks as if Mistral is feeling confident enough about its leadership position to begin making policy demands. And akin to the sovereign AI pitch of one of their investors, Nvidia, Mistral has developed their large language models in different languages, meaning they want data centers in different countries.
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