Paris-based Mistral AI, a company specialised in generative artificial intelligence, has secured €468M in an equity funding round at a €5.8B valuation.
However, the total amount raised, including debt, is €600M, reports Sifted.
The funding was led by new investor DST Global and existing backer General Catalyst, as reported by sources.
The announcement comes six months after raising $415M in a Series A funding round led by A16z and at a $2B valuation.
The announcement comes a couple of months after Databricks, a Data and AI company, invested an undisclosed amount in the French company.
Previous developments
Besides funding, the San-Francisco-based Databricks also announced a partnership with Mistral AI, where former’s customers can access native Mistral models through the Databricks Marketplace.
Earlier this year, the Redmond tech giant Microsoft invested €15M into the French AI company to provide developers with greater access to its technology.
Last year, the AI company released Mistral 7B, its first large language model (LLM) under the open-source Apache 2.0 licence in September.
Mistral-7B is a foundational model based on customised training, tuning, and data processing methods.
This optimised model allows for the compression of knowledge and deep reasoning capacities despite having few parameters.
These optimised foundational models can lead to benefits in sustainability and efficiency by reducing training time, cost, energy consumption, and the environmental impact of AI.
Mistral AI: Pushing AI forward
Mistral AI is a platform that assembles teams to develop generative AI models.
The French company specialises in open-source software for chatbots and generative AI tools.
Its founders have experience working on large language models similar to those developed by OpenAI.
The startup was launched in May and valued at $259M in June, following a record $113M in seed funding, the largest-ever seed round recorded in Europe.
01
Empowering Ukrainian Startups: Highlights from the PowerUp Ukraine 2024 Conference