Mistral artificial intelligence, the French society behind the assistant of the chats and different basic models, is officially considered one of the most promising technological startups in France and is probably the only European society that could compete with Openai. But compared to its evaluation of $ 6 billion, its global market share is still relatively low.
However, the recent launch of his chat assistant in the mobile apps was welcomed with a little clamor, particularly in his country of origin. “Go downloading the chats, which is made by Mistral, rather than chatgpt from Openi – or something else,” said French president Emmanuel Macron in a television interview in view of the Ai Action Summit in Paris.
While this wave of attention can be encouraging, incorrect artificial intelligence has yet to face challenges in the competition with artists of the caliber of Openi-E in doing it while keeping the step with its self-defination as “the greenest artificial intelligence laboratory and leader in the world”.
What is the IA Mistral?
Mistral artificial intelligence has collected significant quantities of funding from its creation in 2023 with the ambition to “put Frontier in the hands of all”. Although this is not a JAB directed to Openi, the slogan aims to highlight the company’s defense for opening in artificial intelligence.
His alternative to Chatgpt, the chat assistant, is now also available on iOS and Android. He reached 1 million downloads in the two weeks following his mobile version, also to take the first place in France for free downloads on the iOS app store.
This presents itself in addition to the Suite of AI AI models, which includes:
In March 2025, the Company introduced Mistral OCR, an an in identification of the optical characters (OCR) that can transform any pdf into a text file to make the ingestion of artificial intelligence models easier.
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Who are the founders of Ai di Ai?
The three founders of Ai Ai di Mastral share a background in research to the main US technological companies with significant operations in Paris. The CEO Arthur Mensch worked at the Google Deepmind, while the CTO Timothée Lacroix and the Chief Scientist Officer Guillaume Lample are ex Mitangers.
The co-foundations consultants also include Jean-Charles Samuilian-Werve (also a member of the Board of Directors) and Charles Gorintin of the Alan health insurance startup, as well as the former digital minister Cédric or, who caused controversy due to his previous role.
AI AI AI models are open source?
Not all of them. Mestral artificial intelligence differentiates its main models, whose weights are not available for commercial purposes, from its free models, for which it provides access to weight with the Apache 2.0 license.
The free models include research models such as Mistral Nemo, which was built in collaboration with Nvidia that the start opened in July 2024.
How does Mistral make money?
While many of the Ai Ai offers are free or now have free levels, the IA Mistral has planned to drive some entries from the paid levels of Le Chat. Introduced in February 2025, the professional plan of Le Chat has a price of $ 14.99 per month.
On the purely B2B side, the IA Mistral monetizes its main models through bees with prices based on use. Companies can also licensed these models and the company probably also generates a significant share of its revenue from its strategic partnerships, some of which highlighted during the Ai summit of Paris.
Overall, however, according to reports, the revenues of Ai Merali are still in the eight -digit interval, according to multiple sources.
Which partnerships have closed artificial intelligence?
In 2024, Ia Mistral embarked on an agreement with Microsoft which included a strategic partnership for the distribution of its models to through the Azure platform of Microsoft and an investment of € 15 million. The competition and the authority of the UK markets (CMA) quickly concluded that the agreement did not qualify for investigations due to its small size. However, he also aroused some criticism in the EU.
In January 2025, Ia Mistral signed an agreement with the France-Presse (AFP) news agency to allow the chat to question the entire AFP text archive dating back to 1983.
Mistral’s artificial intelligence has also obtained strategic partnerships with the army and the working agency in France, the Giant of the CMA expedition, the startup of German defense technology Helsing, IBM, Orange and Stellantide.
How many loans have collected the IA Mistral to date?
In February 2025, until today, the IA Mistral has collected about 1 billion euros of capital, about $ 1.04 billion at the current exchange rate. This includes some debt funding, as well as several roundabouts collected in close succession.
In June 2023, and even before publishing its first models, Mistral Ai collected a 112 million dollar seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sources at the time said that the largest European semi-the-the-semi-the-the-semi-the start-up then the startup then a month at $ 260 million.
Other investors in this semi -semi round included Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Headline, JCDecaux Holding, the family, Localglobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina and Xavier Niel.
Only six months later, he closed a Serie A of € 385 million ($ 415 million at the time), with a reported evaluation of $ 2 billion. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), with the participation of existing light Speed, as well as BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, condemnation, Elad Gil, Catalyst General and Salesforce.
The 16.3 million dollar convertible investment that Microsoft made in artificial intelligence incorrect as part of their partnership announced in February 2024 was presented as a series A extension, which implies an unchanged evaluation.
In June 2024, the IA Mistral then collected 600 million euros in a mix of shares and debts (about 640 million dollars at the exchange rate currently). The long -lasting round was led by General Catalyst to an evaluation of $ 6 billion, with important investors, including Cisco, Ibm, Nvidia, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and others.
What wait a exit of artificial intelligence could appear?
Mistral is “not on sale”, Mensch said in January 2025 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Of course, (an ipo is) the plan.”
This makes sense, given how much the startup has collected so far: even a large sale may not provide quite high multiples for its investors, not to mention the concerns of sovereignty depending on the buyer.
However, the only way to crush persistent acquisition items is to resize its revenues at levels that could even justify its evaluation of almost $ 6 billion at a distance. In any case, remain tuned.
This story was originally published on February 28, 2025 and will be regularly updated.
