KI aus Europa: Mistral sammelt 3 Milliarden Euro für KI-Expansion ein

The European race for artificial intelligence supremacy has taken a significant step forward with Mistral, a French AI startup, securing €3 billion in a new financing round. This puts Mistral in contention against U.S. giants such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The Series D round increases Mistral's valuation to over €21 billion, the largest equity financing for a European technology company to date.

Despite the huge sums, U.S. AI companies are in a different league. Mistral, however, positions itself as a European alternative by focusing on open-source "Open-Weight" models. This allows customers to leverage the latest AI technology without surrendering control over their computing infrastructure or confidential business data to U.S. corporations. Samsung Electronics serves as the lead investor in this record round, alongside Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, and PSG Equity, an existing investor.

Other notable investors include Advent, a fund managed by BlackRock, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Mistral's co-founder and CEO, Arthur Mensch, emphasized the need for companies to integrate AI into complex systems using their own data, tools, and compliance measures. "That's the real problem," he said. "That's why we built Mistral on open models and an infrastructure we fully control, so our customers can do the same."

The financing round is seen as crucial for accelerating research and development, product expansion, and infrastructure. Mistral aims to strengthen its computing and research capabilities while expanding its international presence. Currently active in 20 countries, the company supports over 125 large-scale customers, including Airbus, ASML, and HSBC, in critical AI projects.