Mistral AI, the French company behind AI Assistant LE Chat and some basic models, is officially considered one of France's most promising high-tech startups and is undoubtedly the only European company that can compete with Openai. However, its global market share remains relatively low compared to its $6 billion valuation.
However, the recent launch of chat assistants on mobile app stores has encountered hype, especially in their home countries. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a television interview ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris, “Download and download LeChat made by Mistral, not open or anything else.”
This wave of attention may be encouraging, but Mistral AI faces challenges when competing with things like openness.
What is Mistral AI?
Since its founding in 2023, Mistral AI has raised a significant amount of money with the ambition to “put frontier AI in everyone's hands.” While this is not a direct jab at Openai, the slogan aims to highlight the company's advocacy for openness in AI.
Chat Assistant Le Chat, an alternative to ChatGpt, is also available on iOS and Android. It reached 1 million downloads two weeks after the mobile release, grabbing France's top spot for free downloads on the iOS App Store.
This includes the following in addition to the Mistral AI model suite:
Who was the founder of Mistral AI?
The three founders of Mistral AI share a background in AI research at a major US high-tech company operating important businesses in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch once worked at Google's Deep Mind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and top scientist Guillaume Lample were former meta staffers.
Co-founding advisors include Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (a board member) and Charles Gorintin of health insurance startup Alan, and CédricO, the former digital minister who sparked controversy due to his previous role.
Is the Mistral AI model open source?
Not all of them. Mistral AI distinguishes premier models whose weight is not available for commercial purposes, and premier models that offer weight access under an Apache 2.0 license.
The free model includes research models such as Mistral Nemo, built in July 2024 in collaboration with Nvidia, which started out in open source.
How does Mistral AI make money?
While many of Mistral AI's offerings are free or currently have free tiers, Mistral AI plans to promote some income from Le Chat's paid tier. The Le Chat Pro Plan, which was introduced in February 2025, costs $14.99 per month.
On the purely B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes the premier model through the API with usage-based pricing. Companies can also license these models, and the company may generate a large portion of its revenue from its strategic partnerships, some of which have been highlighted at the Paris AI Summit.
Overall, however, Mistral AI's revenues are reportedly still in the eight-digit range, according to multiple sources.
Which partnerships did Mistral AI close?
In 2024, Mistral AI signed an agreement with Microsoft, including a strategic partnership to distribute AI models through an investment of 15 million euros with Microsoft's Azure platform. The UK Competitive Markets Agency (CMA) quickly concluded that the transaction is not eligible for investigation due to its small size. But it also sparked some criticism in the EU.
In January 2025, Mistral AI signed a contract with Press Agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) to query the entire AFP text archive dating back to 1983.
Mistral AI has also secured a strategic partnership with French Army and duties, German defense technology startup Helsing, IBM, Orange and Stellantis.
How much funding has Mistral AI raised so far?
As of February 2025, Mistral AI had raised about 1 billion euros of capital to date, and about $1.04 billion at its current exchange rate. This includes several debt financing and several closely-sequential equity funding rounds.
In June 2023, and before it released its first model, Mistral AI garnered a record $112 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sources at the time said the seed round (the largest ever in Europe) valued the then-month startup at $260 million.
Other investors in this seed round include Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Headline, Jcdecaux Holding, La Famiglia, Localglobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina and Xavier Niel.
Just six months later, it closed its Series A, which weighed 385 million euros (at that time $415 million) at a reported $2 billion valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) and was accompanied by participation from existing backers Lightspeed, BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Conviction, Elad Gil, General Catalyst, and Salesforce.
The $16.3 million conversion investment Microsoft made to Mistral AI as part of the partnership announced in February 2024 is presented as a Series A expansion, meaning an unchanged valuation.
In June 2024, Mistral AI raised €600 million through a mix of stocks and debt (approximately $640 million at the exchange rate at the time). The long-term round was led by General Catalyst at a $6 billion valuation, along with notable investors such as Cisco, IBM, Nvidia and Samsung Venture Investment Corporation.
What does the Mistral AI exit look like?
Mistral “is not on sale,” Mensch told the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2025. “of course, [an IPO is] plan. ”
This makes sense given how much the startups have raised so far. Even large sales may not provide sufficient multiples for investors, let alone sovereign concerns depending on the acquirer.
However, the only way to ensure that rumours of a constant acquisition are to scale revenue to a level that can even justify a near $6 billion valuation remotely. Either way, look forward to it.