Paris-based Mistral AI, one in all Europe’s best AI startups, has raised €1.7 billion in a Sequence C funding spherical led by Dutch chip tools big ASML.
The spherical offers ASML an 11% stake, making it Mistral’s largest shareholder, and values the French startup at €11.7 billion, almost doubling its valuation since June 2024.
The spherical additionally noticed participation from present backers together with Nvidia, DST World, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, Common Catalyst, Index Ventures, and Lightspeed. ASML is contributing €1.3 billion of the overall funding, and its Chief Monetary Officer Roger Dassen will sit down on Mistral’s strategic committee.
“We’re again to highschool! Very pleased with our staff accomplishments, and honored to companion with ASML in our subsequent part. We’re very excited to push frontier AI capabilities in science and expertise, with thrilling releases forward,” mentioned Founder Arthur Mensch in a public assertion.
Based in 2023 by Arthur Mensch, a former DeepMind researcher, alongside ex-Meta researchers Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, Mistral has rapidly established itself as Europe’s main contender towards U.S. rivals corresponding to OpenAI and Anthropic, in addition to rising Chinese language gamers like DeepSeek.
The corporate develops LLMs and lately introduced its first reasoning mannequin, designed for superior drawback fixing in arithmetic and coding.
Mistral now employs greater than 350 individuals and has secured contracts value over €1.4 billion since its launch, with annual contract worth already surpassing €300 million. Its clients embody main teams corresponding to Stellantis, CMA CGM, and French authorities departments.
Arthur Mensch, Mistral’s chief govt, mentioned that for each financial and strategic causes, “it’s essential for European corporations to not have an excessive amount of dependency on US expertise”.
The funding additionally has industrial implications. ASML, finest referred to as the only real provider of maximum ultraviolet lithography programs important for producing superior chips, plans to leverage Mistral’s AI capabilities to optimise its instruments and increase product improvement. Within the quick time period, Mistral’s fashions might be used to boost chipmaking processes, whereas in the long run each corporations are eyeing alternatives to bridge the semiconductor and AI worth chains.
“We began to search for a companion, as a result of we thought that this isn’t one thing we must always attempt to do ourselves,” famous Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML mentioned.
Whereas European policymakers typically spotlight expertise sovereignty as a key challenge, each ASML performed down that framing. Fouquet acknowledged sovereignty as “an extra profit” however careworn that the choice was primarily about mutual enterprise worth.
Mensch added that partnering with ASML will enable Mistral to construct programs that transcend the generic capabilities provided by different AI fashions.
This deal brings Mistral’s complete funding to just about €2.8 billion since launch, cementing its place as one in all Europe’s most respected AI startup. Nonetheless, it nonetheless lags behind U.S. friends, with OpenAI valued at $500 billion in a latest secondary share sale and Anthropic at $183 billion.
Regardless of this hole, Mistral’s concentrate on industrial purposes and powerful European buyer base highlights a differentiated method.
