Mistral AI Exceeds $24 Billion Valuation After Samsung-Led Investment Round

Mistral AI completed a new funding round led by South Korea’s Samsung 005930 -0.19%decrease; down pointing triangle Electronics that lifted its valuation above $24 billion, giving it additional firepower to invest in model development and grow its customer base.

The French artificial-intelligence startup said it had raised 3 billion euros, equivalent to $3.48 billion, from a pool of existing investors like Samsung and Dutch chip-equipment giant ASML Holding ASML 0.55%increase; green up pointing triangle as well as new backers such as Advent, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

The announcement comes about a year after Mistral AI closed an ASML-led round that gave the company an 11.7 billion-euro valuation. The latest round, co-led by Samsung, EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund and existing investor PSG Equity, brings its valuation above 21 billion euros, or $24.39 billion.

Johan Bergqvist, who joined Mistral AI earlier this year as chief financial officer, said in an interview that this was the largest equity fundraising round ever completed by a European tech company, and that support from ASML and Samsung showed how big tech groups continued to see promise in Mistral AI about three years after its launch.

“That’s a reflection of the growing confidence in what we can offer,” he said, noting that Mistral AI would leverage the freshly raised capital to fund a significant expansion of its models, for which the company sees growing appetite.

Mistral AI has been a strong supporter of open-weight AI models—those that are publicly available for anyone to download and modify—saying they give users the flexibility to tailor them to their needs while protecting their data and intellectual property.

“We see that open source is resonating more and more with corporates that want to be in control of their own sovereignty, their own AI transformation and applications, and they also want to be more careful and cautious about with whom and where they share their confidential customer data as well as their own IP data,” Bergqvist said.

Despite support from a growing batch of investors, Mistral AI remains significantly smaller compared to U.S. rivals like Anthropic and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, whose valuations are nearing $1 trillion. Both companies are aiming for initial public offerings soon.

“We are a bit younger, which is sometimes easy to forget. Being three years in, I think we have a pretty good trajectory,” Bergqvist said, adding that annual recurring revenue was slightly above $1 billion and that an IPO remains a possibility further down the line.

“Ultimately, we want to have the strategic flexibility to go public in a rather short time period if the board and others decide so. But there’s nothing imminent in that aspect,” he said.

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