French AI start-up Mistral AI raises 385 mn euros

French artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI announced on Sunday that it had raised €385 million ($414 million), becoming one of two European leaders in artificial intelligence.

Founded in May by sector heavyweights, Mistral had already raised €105 million in June.

Among European AI companies, only Germany’s Aleph Alpha has provided as much funding, raising almost half a billion euros in early November.

This second round of financing, led by the Californian fund Andreessen Horowitz, values ​​Mistral at 2 billion euros, according to financial sources, making it a French technological unicorn, with a valuation of more than 1 billion euros.

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch said the newly announced find marks “another important step in our acceleration.”

The emergence of European AI players comes at a time when the European Union seeks to ensure future regulation of the sector, without slowing down innovation in the region.

EU member states and lawmakers reached an agreement on Friday on how to draft rules regulating AI models.

France and Germany initially feared that excessive regulation would harm their fledgling champions.

Mistral’s backers include several American technology giants, including software publisher Salesforce and also, according to industry sources, the Nvidia group, a world leader in supercomputer chips.

The mobilization of the main Silicon Valley players reflects the enthusiasm generated by Mistral in just eight months of existence.

It has already been cited by US media as a potential rival to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

Like many of its competitors, Mistral, which has 22 employees, offers companies open source language models powered by public data.

Its three French co-founders are CEO Mensch, 31, along with Guillaume Lample and Timothee Lacroix, all with experience at major US tech companies including Meta.

© 2023 AFP