Mistral recently raised around €3 billion in a Series D funding round led by Samsung Electronics. This momentum has helped take the French AI player’s valuation above €21 billion as it ramps up wider efforts to build sovereign frontier AI.
Samsung jointly led the round with European Union (EU)-backed Scaleup Europe Fund, and existing investor PSG Equity. According to Mistral, the raise marks the largest ever equity funding round by a European technology company.
New investors included private equity firm Advent and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, while existing backers including Mistral’s largest shareholder ASML, Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures and Bpifrance also participated.
Mistral said the funds will expand its frontier AI research and compute capacity, as well as support infrastructure investment, model development, commercial growth and international expansion.
Last year, the startup raised €1.7 billion at a €11.7 billion valuation in a series C funding round led by ASML.
The company said demand is growing for sovereign AI that combines performance with control, as enterprises and governments consider “long-term technology dependencies, data governance requirements and deployment choices”.
Mistral emphasised its “full-stack and open approach” and open-weight models and as a “sovereign AI layer” that gives organisations greater control over their data, models, compute and production systems.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: Mistral
