In the land of start-ups, Mistral AI's story has all the makings of a fairy tale. In June, the young French artificial intelligence (AI) company made a big splash by raising €105 million just a few weeks after its launch, when it still had neither products nor revenues.
On Monday, December 11, it impressed with a new €385 million round of financing, and a €2 billion valuation – already propelling it into the coveted realm of unicorns, those start-ups valued at over $1 billion. Its 31-year-old CEO, Arthur Mensch, has set his sights high: "We are pursuing a clear trajectory: To create a European champion with a global vocation in generative artificial intelligence, based on an open, responsible and decentralized approach to technology."
In other words, Mistral AI wants to launch language processing models capable of competing with those of American giants such as OpenAI – creator of ChatGPT – Google and Meta. US investment funds Andreessen Horowitz and LightSpeed Ventures led the new round of funding. They were joined by Salesforce, BNP Paribas and CMA CGM, plus first-round shareholders such as Bpifrance, the La Famiglia fund and Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google).
Mistral AI's appeal stems from its team's prestigious profiles: The three co-founders combine French academic excellence in mathematics and computer science with experience working for leading American AI giants – Arthur Mensch graduated from two elite French universities, Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Normale Supérieure, before working for Google DeepMind. Technical Director Thimothée Lacroix spent eight years at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and then joined Meta. There, he worked on LLaMA, the language processing model used by that same parent company of Facebook and Instagram, with Mistral AI's scientific director, Guillaume Lample, also a Polytechnique alumnus.
The young AI champion has enjoyed strong political support. "Mistral demonstrates that France has everything it takes to master artificial intelligence," posted French Junior Digital Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on X. "Bravo to Mistral, that's French genius," Emmanuel Macron praised on Monday. The president had already shared a stage with Mensch at the VivaTech trade fair in June. Macron had advocated for "French champions" of AI and said he "shared the concerns" of Mistral AI about the forthcoming European regulation, likely to "hamper innovation," according to him.
During the negotiations on this "AI Act," France was accused of pushing against certain measures in order to align itself with the positions of its national start-up. "Mistral AI is lobbying, that's normal. But we're not fooled by anything," noted European Commissioner Thierry Breton in La Tribune. Also under scrutiny is Mistral AI's public affairs adviser, Cédric O. This former junior digital minister is one of Mistral AI's three "non-operational" co-founders and owns shares in the start-up – of which he, like the other five co-founders, sold a small portion as part of the arrival of new investors.
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