French AI startup Mistral, which develops large language models and cloud AI services, has raised 3 billion euros (US$3.49 billion) at a valuation of about 21 billion euros (US$24.4 billion) to fund its models and frontier research, according to CFO Johan Bergqvist.

Mistral said the round was the largest equity investment ever raised by a privately held European technology company.

Existing investor PSG Equity co-led the round with Samsung Electronics, and the European Union-backed Scaleup Europe Fund.

The Scaleup Europe Fund is part of the European Innovation Council and is meant to support high-growth companies in strategic sectors.

Mistral sells training and inference services through its AI Cloud and has also launched compute offerings.

The raise follows reports in June that Mistral was in talks to raise 3 billion euros (US$3.49 billion) at a 20 billion euros (US$23.2 billion) valuation.

Bergqvist said the new funding will support computing power and frontier research. He added that an initial public offering remains an option, with no immediate timetable.

Mistral also said it has more than 125 customers and is on track for $1 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026.

🔗 Source: Calcalist

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