The French company Mistral announced this Tuesday (8) a Series D round of €3 billion, which raised its post-investment valuation to more than €21 billion, about US$ 24 billion. According to the company, it is the largest capital raise ever conducted by a European technology company.
The round was led by Samsung Electronics, with Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, and PSG Equity as co-leaders. Advent, funds managed by BlackRock and the government of Luxembourg joined as new investors, while shareholders such as ASML, Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz also participated.
The new capital will be mainly allocated to frontier model research, expanding the computing capacity needed to train them, and expanding Mistral's infrastructure and international operations. The company says it is present in 20 countries and serves more than 125 large companies, including Airbus, ASML and HSBC.
Round reinforces Europe's bet on homegrown AI
With the new valuation, Mistral has become the second most valuable private technology company in Europe, according to CFO Johan Bergqvist. Founded just three years ago, the company holds a central position in Europe's attempt to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers of artificial intelligence.
That strategy is also reflected in the company's technological positioning. Mistral develops open-weight models, which can be downloaded, customized and run on customers' own infrastructure. The company presents this approach as a way to give businesses and governments greater control over data, models and computing capacity.
Bergqvist told Reuters that maintaining a European AI supplier has become relevant given the risk of political decisions interfering with access to technologies developed in other countries. The concern gained weight after recent U.S. restrictions on foreign access to certain advanced models.
Despite the progress, the financial gap to the largest American groups remains wide. Reuters calculates Anthropic's valuation at US$ 965 billion and OpenAI's at US$ 852 billion, figures far higher than the US$ 24 billion now attributed to Mistral.
The company is also accelerating its commercial expansion. According to Bergqvist, Mistral is on track to reach US$ 1 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026, with growth especially in Asia and North America. A potential IPO remains a future possibility, but the company says it is not holding discussions about an IPO at this time.
