If you follow the AI industry, Mistral should be a familiar name by now. The French AI startup with a $6 billion valuation is arguably the largest AI company working on the foundation model in Europe.
Alan, on the other hand, is less well known. The health insurance unicorn is quietly growing and has become your digital companion for your health. More than 680,000 people in a small number of countries are covered by Alan's insurance.
The link between these two companies is Jean-Charles Samourian Werbe, co-founder CEO of Alain and co-founding advisor of Mistral.
Bloomberg published a strange story explaining his role and some insight into Mistral's origin story. “Arthur Mensch is the public face of French AI champion Mistral, but the CEO of another startup was integral to its $6 billion valuation,” Bloomberg writes. Samuelian-Werve has been listed as a co-founding advisor since Mistral's inception, but no one gave him that much credit for building and growing the French AI company.
According to Bloomberg, Samuelian-Werve saw the AI boom coming before the release of ChatGpt. He first contacted Xavier Niel, the telecom billionaire behind Station F and Kima Ventures, to form an AI nonprofit.
However, when Samurian Welve met Arthur Mensch and Mistral's other co-founders, he dropped the nonprofit idea in favor of what is now known as Mistral. It was around the same time that Alain's other co-founders, CTO Charles Golintin and former digital minister Cedric O, also became founders of Paris-based AI Juggernaut.
According to Bloomberg, Samurian Welve convinced Lightspeed to lead Mistral's seed round, reaching out to many of the investors who backed the AI startup. We reached out to Mistral for a response to the story, which gives credit to Samulian Welve for its founding and growth. We will update this post with any new information we receive.
In February 2024, Samulian Wave mentioned Alan's interest in artificial intelligence when presenting his financial results.
“We continue to invest in AI across Aran. As you may know, I am a co-founder and board member of Misral. It just represents the fact that – Even before the topic of generative AI, reducing our administrative costs, being the most efficient on the market, providing the best services, and also creating new services. for,” Samuelian-Werve said at the time. “And certainly in 2024, we will be announcing new services related to generative AI that are very exciting for us.”
In November 2024, Alan introduced an AI-powered chatbot called MO. What makes MO different from regular chatbots is that the answers are checked by a doctor within 15 minutes. They can confirm medical advice or correct what was said in the conversation.
What about Xavier Neil? He ended up funding Kyutai, a French AI lab focused on (truly) open source AI development. But he didn't part ways with Mistral completely, as he also invested in Mistral's seed round.
Today, Mistral's office is still in the same building as Alain's near Canal Saint-Martin in Paris. Samuelian-Werve and Mensch meet once a week to discuss Mistral's strategy. Alan is also a shareholder in Mistral.
In a Bloomberg profile, Samulian Werbe reiterated that Mistral is not for sale, confirming what Mensch said at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few days ago. This topic, and the relationship between Alan and Mistral, will come up again next month during the AI Action Summit in Paris. But it's worth remembering that when a company is for sale, you often hear that the company is not for sale, or that at least some shareholders are pressuring it to sell.