AI Assistant Le Chat and French company Mistral AI, behind several basic models, are officially considered one The most promising technology startup in France yes It can be said that it is the only European company that can compete with Openai. However, its global market share remains relatively low compared to its $6 billion valuation.
However, the chat assistant on the mobile app store has encountered some hype recently, especially in its home country. “Go to download the chat, not made by openai, or something,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. In a TV interview Before the AI Action Summit in Paris.
While this wave of attention may be encouraging, Mistral AI is still facing challenges when competing with people like Openai – while doing so, it defines it as a self-defined “the world’s greenest and leading independent AI lab.”
What is Mistral AI?
Since its creation in 2023, Mistral AI has raised a lot of money, and it ambitiously “put Frontier AI in the hands of everyone.” While this is not a direct poke from OpenAI, the slogan is designed to highlight the company’s advocacy of openness in AI.
Its alternative is chatgpt, chat assistant le chat, now it is also Available on iOS and Android. It’s achieved 1 million downloads Within two weeks after the mobile launch, it even downloaded the first place in France for free on the iOS App Store.
This is the model suite of Mistral AI, which includes:
In March 2025, the company Mistral OCR was introducedan optical character recognition (OCR) API that can turn any PDF into a text file to make AI models easier to ingest.
Who is the founder of Mistral AI?
The three founders of Mistral AI have backgrounds in AI research at large American tech companies, which has a significant business in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch used to work at Google’s DeepMind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and chief scientist Guillaume Lample are former Meta staff.
The co-created consultants also include Jean Charles Samuel Weaver (also a board member) and Charles Gorintin from health insurance startup Alan and former digital minister Cédric O Causing controversy Due to his previous role.
Is the Mistral AI model open source?
Not everyone. Mistral AI distinguishes its Prime Minister’s model Weight Not available for commercial purposes, from its free model, it provides heavy access to the Apache 2.0 license.
Free models include research models such as Mistral Nemo, which was built in partnership with Nvidia, the startup Open source July 2024.
How does Mistral AI make money?
Although many of Mistral AI’s products are free or There is now a free layerMistral AI plans to earn some revenue from Le Chat’s paid tier. Le Chat’s Pro is scheduled to launch in February 2025 and is priced at $14.99 per month.
On the purely B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes through APIs through usage-based pricing. Businesses can also license these models, and the company may also generate substantial revenue from its strategic partnerships, some of which emphasize During the Paris AI Summit.
However, overall, according to multiple sources, Mistral AI’s revenue is reportedly still in the eight-digit range.
Which partnerships have closed Mistral AI?
In 2024, Mistral AI reached an agreement with Microsoft that included a strategic partnership to distribute its AI models through Microsoft’s Azure platform and an investment of 15 million euros. Competition and Marketing Authority (CMA) in the UK End quickly Due to its small size, the transaction is not eligible for investigation. However, it also triggered some criticize in the EU.
January 2025, Mistral AI Signed a deal with news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) Let the chat search AFP’s entire text archive date back to 1983.
Mistral AI also establishes strategic partnership with France army and Working AgentGerman Defense Technology Startup Hulls,,,,, IBM,,,,, orangeand Stellantis.
How much money has Mistral AI raised so far?
As of February 2025, Mistral AI has raised about 1 billion euros in capital so far, at the current exchange rate of US$1.04 billion. This includes some debt financing, as well as several rounds of consecutive rounds raised at close range.
In June 2023, even before the first model was released, Mistral AI proposed Record $112 million seed round Leaded by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sources at the time said the seed round – The largest ever in Europe – The estimated price of a one-month-old startup at that time was $260 million.
Other investors in this type of sub-round include Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Title, JC Decaux Holding, La Famiglia, Localglobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina and Xavier Niel.
Just six months later, it closed Series A €385 million ($415 million at the time), reportedly valued at $2 billion. The round is led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), with existing Backer Lightspeed as well as participation from BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Crivention, Elad Gil, General Catalyst and Salesforce.
this $16.3 million convertible investment As part of the partnership announced in February 2024, Microsoft made it in Mistral AI as a Series A extension, which means the valuation remains unchanged.
In June 2024, Mistral AI was held later €600 million in stocks and debts (It was about US$640 million in exchange rates at the time). this Long-term roul round Leaded by ordinary catalysts at a valuation of $6 billion, including well-known investors such as Cisco, IBM, NVIDIA, Samsung Ventures, etc.
What will Mistral AI export look like?
Mistral is “not for sale”, Mensch said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2025. “certainly, [an IPO is] plan. ”
Given how much the startup has raised so far: Even large sales could offer investors a high enough multiple, not to mention the sovereignty issues of the acquirer.
But the only way to absolutely squeeze ongoing acquisition rumors is to expand its revenue to a level that justifies its nearly $6 billion valuation. Either way, stay tuned.
This story was originally released on February 28, 2025 and will be updated regularly.
