Samsung is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of euros in Mistral, a Paris-based AI startup, in a funding round that could value the company at about 20 billion euros (US$22.9 billion), according to a July 22 report.

Samsung could invest about 1 billion euros (US$1.14 billion), while EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund is also in talks to participate.

If completed at that price, the round would mark a sharp increase from Mistral’s last disclosed valuation of 11.7 billion euros (US$13.4 billion) in September, when ASML became its largest shareholder.

The fundraising follows Mistral’s July 21 agreement with Microsoft.

Under the infrastructure and distribution deal, Microsoft said it would make a multibillion-dollar commitment to support Mistral’s European data center growth and rent AI infrastructure from the startup.

Some Mistral models will also be offered through Foundry and Copilot, with no new equity stake.

Mistral also has a framework agreement with the French military to deploy AI on French-controlled infrastructure, as the European Union moves to curb overreliance on non-European Union cloud providers.

EQT’s fund, meanwhile, targets later-stage European tech companies and has a 5 billion euros (US$5.72 billion) goal.

🔗 Source: Reuters

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