Mistral AI, the Paris-based startup founded by alumni from Meta and Google's DeepMind, has raised $640 million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. The investment, consisting of $503 million in equity and $142 million in debt, has propelled the company's valuation to a whopping $6 billion just one year after its founding. This investment round, led by General Catalyst, with contributions from several new and existing investors, signals a major vote of confidence in Mistral's pursuit of cutting-edge AI technology.
The company, which entered the generative AI race with Europe's largest-ever seed round of $113 million, is now gearing up to take on the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic in the global AI arena. The startup has already released pre-trained and fine-tuned models under open source licenses, including Mistral 7B, Mistral 8x7B, and Mistral 8x22B.
Mistral's initial focus on open-source models and its ability to support multiple languages have set it apart, and with this new funding, it aims to expand its compute capacity and team to accelerate commercialization internationally.
The Series B round attracted a diverse array of investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, NVIDIA, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, Salesforce Ventures, and many others. The company's impressive progress in releasing foundational models over the past 18 months has been a key factor in attracting such significant investment. This influx of capital brings Mistral AI’s total funding to over $1 billion.
Mistral AI's CEO and co-founder, Arthur Mensch, expressed his delight in the investors' renewed confidence and support for the company's expansion. The funding round ensures Mistral AI's continued independence and positions the startup to push the boundaries of AI technology.
The AI space is buzzing with activity, and Mistral's latest funding round underscores the intense interest in this sector. With the market projected to explode to $1.3 trillion over the next decade, investors are pouring money into startups they believe will be major players. It will be exciting to see how Mistral leverages this investment to push the boundaries of AI and bring its state-of-the-art technology to a wider audience.