PARIS: French artificial-intelligence company Mistral AI has raised €3 billion in new investment, valuing the three-year-old company at approximately €21 billion, or $24 billion, in one of the largest private technology funding rounds ever completed in Europe.
The financing was co-led by existing investor PSG Equity, Samsung Electronics and the EU-backed Scaleup Europe Fund. The latest valuation makes Mistral one of Europe’s most valuable private technology companies and strengthens its position as the continent’s leading challenger to American AI developers.
Mistral plans to use the additional capital to develop more advanced artificial-intelligence models, expand frontier research and increase its international operations. The company already supplies AI technology to more than 125 customers and says it is expanding particularly rapidly in Asia and North America.
Founded in 2023 by former researchers from Meta and Google DeepMind, Mistral has become a central part of Europe’s effort to build greater technological independence from the United States. European governments and businesses have increasingly expressed concern about relying almost entirely on American companies for advanced AI models and computing infrastructure.
The company expects annual recurring revenue to reach around $1 billion by the end of 2026. Despite the enormous new valuation, Mistral says it is not currently preparing an initial public offering, although an IPO remains a possibility in the longer term.