French start-up Mistral AI to compete with Silicon Valley firms, raises 105 million euros in Europe's largest seed funding

Founders of Mistral AI

Mistral AI, the French technology and Artificial Intelligence start-up has raised 105 million euros in just one month.  The company formed by former Meta and Google AI researchers is working on creating generative AI like OpenAI.

The Paris-based company acquired the largest-ever funding in Europe in its first round. Sources close to the company confirmed to the Financial Times that this funding values Mistral AI at 240 million euros creating strong competition against the US-based companies OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, and DeepMind by Google.

The company is founded by former researcher at DeepMind Arthur Mensch with former Meta researchers, Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample.

“There is a rising awareness of the fact that this technology is transformative and Europe needs to do something about it,” Mensch was quoted as saying in the report.

Leading the Mistral AI’s first round are Lightspeed Venture Patners, Snapchat, Epic Games and StabilityAI. Other shareholders include Businessmen Xavier Niel and Rodolphe Saade, JCDecaux Holding, Italy's Exor Ventures and Belgian firm Sofina. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is also a shareholder in Mistral AI, as reported by Reuters.

According to the Financial Times, Mistral AI early next year will launch its first product, a new Large Language Model and generative AI similar to ChatGPT.

Antonio Moyroud, partner at Lightspeed Ventures told the Financial Times that there are only 80-100 people with such expertise and assures that the team’s success at the initial funding stage is a reflection of their expertise.

“We just need to demonstrate how beneficial it would be, for once, to be in control of our own destiny in terms of technology in Europe,” Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, an adviser to Mistral AI, said.

Europe has already been focusing on AI by working on guidelines for its usage.