Mistral valued above €21bn after €3bn funding round

French AI company Mistral said on September 8, 2026, that it had raised three billion euros ($3.5 billion) in a funding round valuing the company at more than 21 billion euros.

Mistral described the Samsung-led round as the largest-ever European tech fundraising. The company said the money would help accelerate research and support international expansion.

Chief executive and co-founder Arthur Mensch said the funding would let Mistral move faster on research and development, products and infrastructure, while allowing organisations to run AI at scale on their own terms.

The company said its notional valuation has nearly doubled since a funding round a year earlier. Mistral said Dutch firm ASML led the previous round, while Samsung Electronics led the latest one.

Mistral has increased spending on infrastructure this year, including its first data centre, planned in France. It also signed a July deal with Microsoft to provide AI computing capacity and offer Mistral models directly to Microsoft clients.

Chief financial officer Johan Bergqvist told AFP that Mistral aimed to expand in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. He said the company could develop some models more cost-efficiently than some peers, limiting its capital needs compared with competitors.