Mistral almost doubles valuation after raising €3 billion in fresh cash

• Mistral raised €3 billion in Series D funding, achieving a valuation of €21 billion.
• The capital will be used to scale training compute, build infrastructure, and expand operations in Asia, the US, and Europe.
• Mistral's strategy involves deploying open-source models and embedding deeply with enterprise customers in sectors like manufacturing (with Samsung), financial services, and the public sector.
• CEO Arthur Mensch expects Mistral to surpass its $1 billion annual recurring revenue target.
• Mistral is not concerned about Nvidia's acquisition of Hugging Face, viewing it as a positive for the open-source ecosystem.
• Mistral aims to be a trusted European provider of AI models, emphasizing long-term support and sovereignty, differentiating itself from Chinese labs that may not operate with enterprise customers outside China.

French AI startup Mistral has secured €3 billion in Series D funding, propelling its valuation to over €21 billion. The investment, led by Samsung Electronics and the Scaleup Europe Fund, will be channeled into expanding Mistral's training compute capacity, infrastructure, and global market presence. CEO Arthur Mensch expressed confidence in exceeding their $1 billion annual recurring revenue target this year, highlighting their open-source strategy and focus on European AI sovereignty.