Mistral Raises 3 Billion Euros In Funding Led By Samsung

According to CNBC, Mistral said on Tuesday it raised 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in fresh funding led by Samsung, giving the French AI startup a post-money valuation of more than 21 billion euros. The round also included the Scaleup Europe Fund, an EU-backed investment fund managed by EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity. Mistral was valued at 11.7 billion euros a year ago after a funding round led by ASML. Arthur Mensch, Mistral's CEO, said the money will be used to build more infrastructure, including its own data centers, and to rent out computing capacity. He said the company plans to rely fully on capacity it builds itself over time, with the amount of compute it owns set to grow by around 100% over the next five years, and that it will train bigger and faster models. Mensch also said Mistral expects annual recurring revenue to exceed $1 billion this year and said the new funding and partnerships could help it beat that figure if current trends continue.