Mistral AI Raises $640M in Series B Funding, Valuation Now at $6B

Mistral AI, a Paris-based startup, has recently secured an impressive $640 million in series B funding, bringing its valuation to nearly $6 billion. This funding round, led by General Catalyst and featuring contributions from prominent investors such as IBM, Samsung, Salesforce, and Nvidia, marks a significant increase in Mistral’s valuation, which was just $240 million a year ago. The CEO of Mistral, Arthur Mensch, expressed his gratitude for the renewed confidence and support from investors, emphasizing the company’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI technology.

With this substantial funding, Mistral plans to expand its compute capacity and grow its team size across departments. The goal is to scale its commercialization efforts internationally and compete more effectively with rivals in the global AI race, including OpenAI and Anthropic. Mistral’s strategy has been to focus on open-source models, offering them for download and testing through torrent links. The company has released several successful models, such as Mistral 7B, Mixtral 8x7B, Mixtral 8x22B, and Codestral. Mistral Large, a proprietary model that outperforms GPT-4 and other competitors, has received particular attention for its proficiency across five languages and a context window of 32K tokens.

Mistral’s open-source models have gained popularity in Europe and beyond, with over 27 million downloads from public repositories. These models have been employed in various complex use cases, notably in the financial industry, tech sector, and public sector. To further accelerate its commercialization efforts, Mistral has formed partnerships with industry giants like Microsoft, Snowflake, Databricks, Capgemini, IBM, and Perplexity. Many of these partners have also made investments in Mistral, solidifying its position as a trusted player in the AI market.

The latest funding round will enable Mistral to expand its reach and adopt more distribution channels, particularly in the United States. The generative AI market, which Bloomberg Intelligence estimates was worth $40 billion in 2022, is expected to grow rapidly, reaching $1.3 trillion over the next decade with a compound annual growth rate of 42%. Mistral is well-positioned to capitalize on this growth and further establish itself as a dominant player in the AI industry.

In conclusion, Mistral AI’s impressive funding round and continued success in the open-source AI space demonstrate its ability to compete with industry leaders. With its innovative models and strategic partnerships, Mistral is poised to drive advancements in AI technology and shape the future of the industry.