Mistral AI, the French company behind AI Assistant LE Chat and several basic models, is officially regarded as one of France's most promising technology startups, arguably 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 chat assistant on the mobile app store has encountered some hype recently, especially in its home country. "Go to download LE CHAT, not by Openai, not by Openai or other chats," French President Emmanuel Macron said in a television interview before AI Action Summit in Paris.
While this wave of attention may be encouraging, Mistral AI is still facing challenges when competing with people like Openai – while doing so, it defines it as a self-defined “the world’s greenest and leading independent AI lab.”
Since its creation in 2023, Mistral AI has raised a lot of money, and it ambitiously “put Frontier AI in the hands of everyone.” While this is not a direct poke from OpenAI, the slogan is designed to highlight the company's advocacy of openness in AI.
Now, Chatgpt's alternative chat assistant LE CHAT is also available for iOS and Android. Within two weeks after the mobile launch, it had downloaded 1 million, and even downloaded France for free on the iOS App Store.
This is the model suite of Mistral AI, which includes:
In March 2025, the company introduced Mismtral OCR, an optical role recognition (OCR) API that can turn any PDF into a text file to make AI models easier to ingest.
The three founders of Mistral AI have backgrounds in AI research at large American tech companies, which has important businesses in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch used to work at Google's DeepMind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and chief scientist Guillaume Lample are former Meta staff.
Co-founded consultants also include Jean-Charles Samuelian W-Verve (also a board member) and Charles Gorintin from Health Insurance Startup Alan, as well as former digital minister Cédric O, who has caused controversy due to his previous role.
Not everyone. Mistral AI distinguishes its main model, whose weights cannot be used for commercial purposes rather than its free model, which provides weight access under the Apache 2.0 license.
The free model includes research models such as Mistral Nemo, which was built in partnership with Nvidia, which opened in July 2024.
While many of Mistral AI’s products are free or have a free tier now, Mistral AI plans to earn some revenue from Le Chat’s paid tier. Le Chat's Pro is scheduled to launch in February 2025 and is priced at $14.99 per month.
On the purely B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes through APIs through usage-based pricing. Businesses can also license these models, and the company may also generate substantial revenue from its strategic partnerships, some of which highlighted some of them during the Paris AI summit.
However, overall, according to multiple sources, Mistral AI's revenue is reportedly still in the eight-digit range.
In 2024, Mistral AI reached an agreement with Microsoft that included a strategic partnership to distribute its AI models through Microsoft's Azure platform and an investment of 15 million euros. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) quickly concluded that the deal was not eligible for investigation due to its small size. However, this has also attracted some criticism from the EU.
In January 2025, Mistral AI signed an agreement with news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) to make the entire text archive of AFP date back to 1983.
Mistral AI also has strategic partnerships with French military and working bodies, transport giant CMA, German defense technology startup Helsing, IBM, Orange and Stellantis.
In May 2025, Mistral AI announced that it would participate in the creation of the AI campus in the Paris region, as part of a joint venture with UAE investment company MGX, NVIDIA and French state-owned investment bank Bpifrance.
As of February 2025, Mistral AI has raised about 1 billion euros in capital so far, at the current exchange rate of US$1.04 billion. This includes some debt financing, as well as several rounds of consecutive rounds raised at close range.
In June 2023, even before the first models were released, Mistral AI raised a record $112 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sources at the time said the seed round (the largest seed ever in Europe) valued the startup in January at $260 million.
Other investors in this type of sub-round include Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Title, JC Decaux Holding, La Famiglia, Localglobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina and Xavier Niel.
Just six months later, it shut down Series A for 385 million euros ($415 million at the time) and was reportedly valued at $2 billion. The round is led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), with existing Backer Lightspeed as well as participation from BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Crivention, Elad Gil, General Catalyst and Salesforce.
Microsoft's $16.3 million convertible investment in Mistral AI is part of its partnership announced in February 2024 as a Series A extension, which means the valuation remains unchanged.
In June 2024, Mistral AI then raised 600 million euros in equity and debt (at the time of about $640 million in exchange rates). This long-term round has been led by General Catalyst at a valuation of $6 billion, including well-known investors such as Cisco, IBM, NVIDIA, Samsung Ventures, etc.
Mensch said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2025 that Mistral is "not for sale". “Of course, (IPO is) the plan.”
Given how much the startup has raised so far: Even large sales could offer investors a high enough multiple, not to mention the sovereignty issues of the acquirer.
But the only way to absolutely squeeze ongoing acquisition rumors is to expand its revenue to a level that justifies its nearly $6 billion valuation. Either way, stay tuned.
This story was originally released on February 28, 2025 and will be updated regularly.