Mistral Ai, a French company with an assistant to AI Le Chat and several foundations, is officially considered one of the most promising technological startups in France and is probably the only European company that would compete with OpenAI. But compared to a valuation value $ 6 billion, its global market share is still relatively low.
However, the recent launch of a chat assistant in mobile applications has met with some noise, especially in your country. “Go and download Le Chat, which is made by Mistral, not chatgpt by OpenAi – or something else,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in a television interview before the peak of the AI motion in Paris.
While this wave of attention could be encouraging, Mistral Ai still faces challenges in competing with equivalent to OpenAI and doing so, while maintaining with self-sufficiency as “preferably green and leading AI laboratory in the world.”
What is Mistral AI?
Mistral Ai collected significant amounts of financing since its creation in 2023 with the ambition of “placing AI Frontier in the hands of everyone.” Although this is not a direct stab at Openai, the slogan goals to emphasize the company’s support in the field of openness in artificial intelligence.
It is an alternative to chatgpt, a Le Chat chat assistant, is now also available on iOS and Android. He achieved 1 million downloads inside two weeks after the mobile release, even winning the best place of France to download free download at iOS App Store.
It is in addition to the Mistral AI models set, which include:
Who are the founders of Mistral Ai?
The three founders of Mistral AI have experience in AI research in essential American technology corporations with significant operations in Paris. The CEO of Arthur Mensch worked at Google Deepmind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and the general director of Guillaume Lample are former employees.
Advisors’ co-founders are also Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (also a member of the board) and Charles Gorintin from the Alan medical health insurance startup, in addition to former digital minister Cédric O, who caused controversy Because of his previous role.
Are Mistral AI models open source?
Not all of them. Mistral AI distinguishes its most vital models, which weights They are not available for industrial purposes, from free models for which it provides access to the weight under APACHE 2.0 license.
Free models include research models equivalent to Mistral Nemo, which was built in cooperation with NVIDIA, that startup Open Source In July 2024
How does Mistral Ai earn money?
While many Mistral AI offers are free or have free levels now, Mistral AI plans to increase revenues from paid Leave levels. Introduced in February 2025, Pro Pro Le Chat costs USD 14.99 per thirty days.
On the pure B2B side, Mistral AI earns on its most vital models through the API interfaces with a price based on use. Enterprises may also license, and the company probably also generates a significant a part of its revenues from its strategic partnerships, some of which distinguished during the Paris AI summit.
In general, nevertheless, Mistral AI’s revenues are reportedly still in an eight -digit range, according to many sources.
What partners have closed Mistral AI?
In 2024, Mistral AI concluded a contract with Microsoft, which included a strategic partnership in the distribution of AI models via Azure Microsoft and investments in the amount of EUR 15 million. The Office for Competition and Markets in Great Britain (CMA) quickly stated that the contract didn’t qualify for the investigation due to its small size. However, this also caused it criticism in the EU.
In January 2025, Mistral AI signed a contract with the France-Presse (AFP) press agency to allow chat to ask the entire AFP text archive of 1983.
Mistral AI also secured strategic partnerships with France army AND Employment AgencyGerman startup of defense technology HelsingIN IBMIN OrangeAND Stellantis.
How much financing has Mistral AI have collected so far?
From February 2025, Mistral AI has collected about EUR 1 billion so far, around $ 1.04 billion at the current exchange rate. This includes some debt financing, in addition to several rounds of capital financing raised in close order.
In June 2023, and before he released his first models, Mistral AI collected a record round of $ 112 million seeds run by LightSpeed Venture Partners. Sources at that point spoke the seed round – The largest in Europe in history -One-month startup for $ 260 million was settled.
Other investors in this round of seeds are Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Headline, Jcdecaux Holding, La Famiglia, Localglobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina and Xavier Niel.
Only six months later she closed the series A in the amount of EUR 385 million (at that point $ 415 million), after a valued valuation of $ 2 billion. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), with the participation of an existing light company, in addition to BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Conviction, Elad Gil, General Catalyst and Salesforce.
The same investment in the amount of USD 16.3 million, which Microsoft made in Mistral AI as a part of the partnership announced by the partnership in February 2024, was presented as an extension of the A series, which implies an unchanged quote.
In June 2024, Mistral AI then collected EUR 600 million in a mixture of equity and debt (about 640 million dollars with a exchange rate). The long -term round was run by General Catalyst with a valuation of $ 6 billion, including significant investors, including Cisco, IBM, Nvidia, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and others.
What can Mistral AI seem like?
Mistral “is not for sale,” said Mensch in January 2025 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Of course, [an IPO is] plan. ”
This makes sense, considering how much the startup has raised: even a lot of sales may not provide enough multiples for its investors, not to mention the fears of sovereignty depending on the buyer.
However, the only way to definitely persistent rumors to take over is to scale revenues to levels, which may even remotely justify the valuation of just about $ 6 billion. Either way, be vigilant.