French artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI has raised €3 billion ($3.5 billion) in a Series D round led by Samsung Electronics, Scaleup Europe, and PSG Equity. The investment, which includes existing investors like ASML Holding and several new backers, values the company at more than €21 billion. Mistral described the move as the largest equity fundraising ever completed by a European technology firm.
The capital will be used to fund the development of artificial intelligence models and the construction of computing infrastructure. By betting on open-weight AI models, Mistral aims to compete with American and Chinese rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic while offering customers a sovereign European alternative.
The funding comes amid accusations from some experts that the company had abandoned the race for cutting-edge models to focus on services and data centers. Mistral has insisted it has not given up on producing cutting-edge models as it strives to keep pace with its international competitors.