In just a few months, Mistral AI has become a key player in generative artificial intelligence in France and Europe. Although the start-up rose to the rank of unicorn at the end of last December with a financing round of 385 million euros, it is in the process of finalization, according to The Wall Street Journalfundraising of $600 million, which would triple its value, bringing it to about $6 billion.
Raising Mistral AI seed fund, carried out when the start-up was only a month old, reached a record amount of 105 million euros for France. Led by the American fund LightSpeed Venture Partners, it showed investors’ confidence in the ability of its 3 co-founders, Arthur Mensch, Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, to create a European GenAI champion in Europe and challenge the established oligopoly by the American AI giants . Xavier Niel, owner of Free, Rodolphe Saadé, head of CMA CGM, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and various European funds appeared there.
Admittedly, in addition to solid experience in deep learning and generative artificial intelligence, the three co-founders show strong determination. A month later, Arthur Mensch, CEO, found himself on stage at Viva Tech facing Emmanuel Macron, pleading for more support for AI players in France. He was also part of the “Commission on Artificial Intelligence” founded by Elisabeth Borne last September together with Luc Juliaan expert in generative artificial intelligence and Yann Le Cun, Vice President and Chief Artificial Intelligence Scientist at Meta. The latter submitted its report to the Government last March “IA: Our ambition for France“, proposing recommendations to make France a major player in the technological revolution of artificial intelligence.
Last December, Mistral AI announced Mixtral AI, its second open-source model, is also in the process of raising €385 million in Series A funding, valuing it at almost €2 billion. The round was led by the venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, with the participation of the funds LightSpeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst, publisher of Salesforce software, through his fund dedicated to generative artificial intelligencebank BNP Paribas and carrier CMA CGM.
A $600 million Series B?
In 2024, Mistal AI is still on the rise: it was introduced last March Mistral the Great, spear “Cat” chat assistant and, in the process, announced a distribution partnership with Microsoft.
In the same month, Databricks revealed its participation in Series A funding for Mistral AI and the integration of the startup’s model into its Databricks Data Intelligence platform.
Mistral AI does not hide its global ambitions and seeks funds to support them. The upcoming Series B announcement was expected, but speculation initially pegged the amount at around $500 million. Although the Wall Street Journal mentions historical investors General Catalyst and Lightspeed Venture Partners, they have not confirmed their participation, and Mistral AI did not want to comment on this information.