French AI startup Mistral is raising €2B in funding at $14B valuation

Mistral AI, the French startup that’s quickly become Europe’s answer to OpenAI, is finalizing a colossal €2 billion funding round that would push its valuation to about $14 billion, according to Bloomberg. The deal, if confirmed, would cement the two-year-old company as one of the continent’s most valuable tech players.

Founded in 2023 by former DeepMind and Meta researchers Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothee Lacroix, Mistral has moved at a breakneck pace since its launch. The Paris-based startup is best known for its open-source large language models and “Le Chat,” a chatbot built with European audiences in mind.

From Unicorn to Decacorn: Inside Mistral’s €2B Raise

The raise marks a dramatic step up from mid-2024, when Mistral secured $650 million at a €5.8 billion valuation. Since then, the company has pulled in more than €1 billion from big-name investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. This new round, said to involve a global consortium of backers, would give the startup a vast war chest to scale its research and infrastructure.

According to Bloomberg, the latest round would value Mistral at €12 billion ($14 billion), underscoring its status as one of Europe’s most valuable tech startups.

The timing reflects a broader surge in European AI investment. Dealroom data shows that funding into AI startups across the continent jumped 55% year-on-year in Q1 2025, with a dozen companies hitting unicorn status in the first half alone. Sweden’s Lovable, an AI coding platform, was one of the standouts, reaching a $1.8 billion valuation just eight months after launch.

Mistral’s rise is closely tied to the generative AI boom unleashed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. With its Mixtral 8x7B model and commitment to open-source development, the company is positioning itself as a European alternative to U.S. and Chinese AI heavyweights. For now, Mistral isn’t commenting on the reported round, but the numbers underscore the intense competition shaping the sector.

If the deal closes, Mistral will have leapt from a promising upstart to a central player in the global AI race in just two years. It’s a trajectory that mirrors the growing ambition of Europe’s tech scene, which is finally starting to punch at the weight of Silicon Valley and beyond.

Mistral Team