Mistral AI announced it raised €600 million (≈$644 million) in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. The one-year-old French startup’s valuation surged to €5.8 billion, up sharply from €2 billion in its prior round just six months earlier.
Co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch called the investment a “unique position to push the frontier of AI” and pledged to bring “state-of-the-art technology to everyone’s hands”.
The round attracted prominent backers – including Lightspeed, Andreessen Horowitz, Cisco, and Nvidia – bringing Mistral’s total financing above €1 billion.
This record funding is one of Europe’s largest in generative AI, underlining investor confidence in a regional challenger to US firms like OpenAI.
Mistral, often dubbed “Europe’s answer to OpenAI,” said it will use the proceeds to expand computing infrastructure, hire talent, and grow internationally, especially in the U.S.. Notably, Microsoft had invested $16 million earlier in February 2024 as part of a partnership to host Mistral’s models on Azure.
That tie-up drew scrutiny from EU lawmakers concerned about Big Tech’s influence, reflecting the regulatory sensitivities around strategic AI startups.
The unprecedented scale of Mistral’s funding – secured barely a year after its founding – solidifies its status as Europe’s best-funded AI lab and a key player in the global race to develop advanced large language models (LLMs).
The backing by heavyweight investors and alliances with firms like Microsoft signal broad support for Mistral’s vision of an independent European AI champion.
