French artificial intelligence company Mistral AI has raised 3 billion euros in a Series D funding round led by Samsung Electronics, pushing its valuation past 21 billion euros and marking the largest single equity fundraising round ever completed by a European technology company.
The Paris-based startup, founded just three years ago by former Google DeepMind and Meta researchers, said the round was co-led by the EU-backed Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity. New investors joining the round include Advent, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
How much has Mistral’s valuation grown?
Mistral was valued at 11.7 billion euros just last year following a 1.7 billion euro Series C led by Dutch chipmaker ASML, meaning the company has nearly doubled its valuation in twelve months. Chief executive Arthur Mensch told CNBC the new capital will go toward building and owning data centers rather than solely renting outside computing capacity, adding that the amount of compute Mistral owns is set to grow roughly 100% over the next five years.
Mensch also said the company is on track to surpass $1 billion in annual recurring revenue before the end of the year, a marker of Mistral’s push to compete with much larger, better-funded American rivals including OpenAI and Anthropic.
Why does a European AI company matter to Samsung?
Samsung’s decision to lead the round reflects a broader push by non-U.S. technology and manufacturing firms to secure access to AI capabilities without full dependence on American providers. Mistral has positioned itself as a champion of what it calls sovereign AI, arguing that governments and companies in Europe and Asia need models and infrastructure they control directly rather than models built and hosted exclusively in the United States.
The funding round comes as European regulators and political leaders have increasingly framed homegrown AI development as a matter of economic and strategic independence, particularly as the continent has largely trailed the U.S. and China in building large-scale AI infrastructure.
Sources: Bloomberg · TechCrunch · CNBC
