A French AI Startup Raised the Largest Funding Round in European Tech History

Keypoints:

• Mistral AI raised €3 billion ($3.5 billion) in a Series D round led by Samsung Electronics
• The round pushed Mistral's valuation above €21 billion, nearly double last year's figure
• ASML, Nvidia, BlackRock, and Andreessen Horowitz all participated
• Mistral plans to build its own data centers rather than rely mainly on rented compute
• The company aims to surpass $1 billion in annual recurring revenue this year

Mistral AI raised €3 billion, roughly $3.5 billion, in a Series D funding round led by Samsung Electronics, the largest equity fundraising round ever completed by a European technology company. The deal pushes Mistral's valuation above €21 billion, nearly double the €11.7 billion it was worth just a year earlier.

The investor list reads like a cross-section of the entire AI supply chain. Samsung led the round alongside the EU-backed Scaleup Europe Fund and existing investor PSG Equity. Chip and equipment makers ASML and Nvidia both participated as existing shareholders, joined by new backers including BlackRock, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. ASML itself had led Mistral's previous funding round a year earlier, making this the second major chipmaker in a row to anchor the French startup's finances.

CEO Arthur Mensch said the money will go toward building and owning data center capacity directly rather than depending mainly on rented computing power. "The amount of computers that we own is going to grow around 100% in the next five years," he said, adding that Mistral intends to train "bigger and faster models" as a result. 

The company, founded in 2023, now operates in 20 countries and serves more than 125 enterprise customers, including Airbus, ASML, and HSBC, positioning itself as a European, open-weight alternative to US and Chinese AI labs while pursuing what it calls "sovereign AI," keeping data and infrastructure decisions in customers' own hands.