French AI company Mistral raised €3 billion in Series D
funding at a post-money valuation of more than €21 billion, three years after
its launch. Samsung Electronics led the round, with the Scaleup Europe Fund,
managed by EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity as co-leads.
New investors Advent, funds and accounts managed by
BlackRock and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also joined the round. Existing
investors a16z, ASML, Belfius, BNP Paribas CIB, Bpifrance, Carmignac, DST
Global, Eurazeo, General Catalyst, Headline, Hillspire, Index Ventures, Korelya
Capital, Lightspeed, NVIDIA, Phoenix Court’s Solar fund and Salesforce Ventures
also participated.
Founded in 2023, Mistral develops AI models, infrastructure
and products for businesses and public-sector organisations. Its approach
combines open-weight models with the infrastructure and computing capacity used
to run them, alongside products for deploying the technology in production
environments.
The company is positioning its technology around growing
demand from organisations seeking greater control over how AI systems are
deployed, including where data is stored, how models are customised and which
infrastructure is used.
Its platform is designed to allow customers to operate AI
systems without relying on a single technology provider and to keep sensitive
data and workflows within their own environments.
Mistral currently operates across 20 countries and says it
supports more than 125 enterprises with their AI deployments, including Airbus,
ASML and HSBC.
The Series D follows Mistral’s Series C, which was led by
Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML. With Samsung Electronics
leading the latest round, the company has now secured successive investments
led by two major technology and industrial groups.
The new funding will be used to expand Mistral’s AI research
and computing capacity, develop its infrastructure and products, and support
further commercial and international expansion.