French startup “Mistral” in the field of artificial intelligence is in talks to raise €500 million to at least double its value to €5 billion, after receiving proposals from several investors interested in investing in this company that has not yet reached its first year.
Three of Mistral’s founders, led by CEO Arthur Minch, are discussing their options just four months after raising around €400 million in an investment round that valued the startup at €2 billion.
Venture capital flows and sovereign wealth funds are among those seeking to support the Paris-based company, which some consider Europe’s best opportunity to compete with the groups OpenAI and Anthropic, according to sources close to the discussions.
Investors have reached out to Mistral and discussions have begun on a deal to raise funds that could value the company at €5 billion or more, according to three people familiar with the situation, as reported by the British newspaper “Financial Times.” Two individuals said that if the deal goes through, the company is likely to raise up to €500 million.
The newspaper described the rapid rise of the company to the top as stunning, even by the advanced standards of smart technology development witnessed over the past eighteen months.
Mistral was founded in May 2023 by three former researchers at meta and Google in the field of artificial intelligence, and has launched several versions of its own artificial intelligence model. It also unveiled a chatbot named Le Chat resembling OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the company has started generating revenue in the past few months.
The company has attracted interest and support from prominent venture capital firms such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as companies like Nvidia and Salesforce, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, during two funding rounds.
