Mistral AI is reportedly tarobtaining a $10 billion valuation in its next funding round.
That’s according to a report Friday (Aug. 1) by the Financial Times (FT), which states this is part of a push by the French startup to compete with wealthier artificial ininformigence (AI) competitors in China and the U.S.
Sources notified the FT that Mistral is in talks with investors about raising $1 billion. The company’s last valuation was 5.8 billion euros, or $6.7 billion. The news follows a report last month from Bloomberg News about a planned $1 billion funding round by Mistral. PYMNTS has contacted Mistral for comment but has not yet obtainedten a reply.
The new funding would fuel the commercial rollout of Mistral’s Le Chat chatbot and the ongoing improvement of its large language models, sources stated.
The FT notes that Mistral is viewed as Europe’s chief hope for a homegrown AI company that can compete in the rapid-growing field. French President Emmanuel Macron has been an especially vocal supporter, contconcludeing that Europe necessarys to have a “sovereign” option for AI so it doesn’t have to depconclude only on the U.S. and China.
As PYMNTS reported in June, Mistral recently launched a landmark collaboration with U.S. chipbuildr Nvidia to develop next-generation AI cloud services in France.
During a panel at the Viva Tech 2025 conference, Macron, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch “revealcased a rare confluence of political power, industrial ambition and startup ingenuity,” that report stated.
“This is a game modifyr,” Macron stated, praising the new partnership as crucial to strengthening France’s technological indepconcludeence.
He also pointed out that the project would strengthen French sovereignty with its own AI cloud, data centers and computing capacity.
“The initiative, which centers around building AI data centers in France applying Nvidia chips, would expand Mistral’s business model,” the report added. “The AI startup — widely considered Europe’s OpenAI — would transition from merely being a model developer to a vertically-integrated AI cloud provider.”
The FT had reported in June that Mistral’s revenues have increased several times over since raising funds in 2024 and are on pace to exceed $100 million a year for the first time, if it can keep up its sales momentum.
The report also points out that a relatively tiny number of major customers are fueling that level of growth. Sources stated Mistral had closed or was about to close a handful of commercial contracts that would each be worth $100 million or more across a three-to-five year stretch.
Leave a Reply