This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
French artificial intelligence company Mistral has raised 3 billion in fresh equity financing, valuing the startup at about 21 billion ($24 billion) in what it said was the largest private technology funding round in Europe.
The financing was led by PSG Equity, Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and the EU-backed Scaleup Europe Fund. Samsung and the fund joined Mistral as investors for the first time, while several existing backers also participated.
The new capital gives Mistral more resources to develop its AI models and pursue frontier research as it competes with larger U.S. companies. New participants included BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), Advent and Luxembourg’s government, alongside returning investors such as ASML (NASDAQ:ASML), NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Salesforce (CRM).
Mistral operates in 20 countries and works with more than 125 enterprises, including Airbus, ASML and HSBC. Its valuation remains well below U.S. AI leaders such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
For associated stocks, the funding could support longer-term AI ecosystem demand, particularly for semiconductor and technology companies involved with Mistral.