Mistral raises €3B as sovereign AI becomes big business

French AI lab Mistral AI on Tuesday said it has raised €3 billion (about $3.58 billion) at a post-money valuation of more than €21 billion (about $24.39 billion), confirming earlier rumors.

This Series D round, which Mistral said is “the largest equity fundraising round ever completed by a European technology company,” was led by Samsung Electronics, with EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund and existing investor PSG Equity joining as co-leads.

Mistral said it will use the funding to scale its compute capacity, build infrastructure, accelerate commercial growth and expand its international footprint. The money could also help clarify its positioning — the company says its goal is not to build a European ChatGPT, and though its models haven’t gone mainstream, it still envisions itself as an AI lab.

The funding will help Mistral pursue a subtle shift in strategy that aims to further address concerns in Europe and elsewhere about being too dependent on the United States for tech, especially with the intensifying politics around AI regulation and products Stateside.

In addition to a push to build 1 GW of compute capacity in Europe by 2030, Mistral in August unveiled tools that let its customers choose which regions their AI queries are processed in. It’s also started hosting third-party, open-weight AI models (Chinese ones, too) to bolster its positioning as an AI services provider that wants its customers to control what AI models they use and how they use them.