Mistral raises €3bn at over €21bn valuation

Mistral said Tuesday it had raised three billion euros ($3.5 billion), valuing the French artificial intelligence company at over 21 billion euros.

The company described the round as the largest-ever European tech equity fundraising. It said the money would help expand research, products and infrastructure.

“This round means we can move faster on R&D, products, infrastructure and keep giving organisations the ability to run AI at scale, on their own terms,” chief executive and co-founder Arthur Mensch said in a statement.

Mistral said it is focusing on open-weight AI models, which companies can run themselves using their own data. Mensch said organisations want to use AI within their own data, tools and compliance systems.

The company said Samsung Electronics led the latest round, after Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML led the previous round. Mistral said this showed support from advanced manufacturers for its approach.

Mistral was valued at nearly 12 billion euros after its previous funding round. The company has increased spending on infrastructure this year, including its first data centre, which is to be built in France, and has a commercial agreement with Microsoft.