Mistral AI has officially closed its highly anticipated Series A funding round
Paris-based startup Mistral AI has officially closed its highly anticipated Series A funding round, securing €385 million (approximately $415 million at current exchange rates). According to Bloomberg, this funding round values the company at an impressive $2 billion. Notably, Mistral AI, a European competitor to OpenAI, had raised $112 million in seed funding just six months prior.
Founded by alumni from Google’s DeepMind and Meta, Mistral AI focuses on developing foundational models with an open technology approach. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) spearheaded the recent funding round, with continued investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners and participation from a notable list of investors, including Salesforce, BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, General Catalyst, Elad Gil, and Conviction.
Mistral AI’s CEO, Arthur Mensch, emphasized the company’s commitment to creating a European champion in generative artificial intelligence with a global impact. The startup’s strategic approach revolves around openness, responsibility, and decentralization in technology.
In September, Mistral AI unveiled its first model, Mistral 7B, which differs from competitors like GPT-4 or Claude 2 by being trained on a “small” dataset of around 7 billion tokens as parameters. Rather than offering access via APIs, Mistral AI opted for a unique approach, allowing developers to freely download and run the model on their devices and servers. The model operates under the Apache 2.0 license, promoting open source principles.
Mistral AI played a crucial role in influencing discussions around the EU’s AI Act, advocating for a total exemption for foundational models. The recent political deal reached by EU lawmakers introduces transparency requirements for companies working on foundational models, emphasizing the need to share technical documentation and dataset summaries.
While Mistral AI initially made its models available for free, the company is now introducing a developer platform in beta. This platform allows other companies to pay for using Mistral AI’s models through APIs. The newly introduced Mixtral 8x7B model, labeled “Mistral-small,” incorporates a router network to enhance processing efficiency. Released under the Apache 2.0 license, it is also available for free download.
Additionally, offers the Mistral-medium model, which outperforms its counterparts. However, access to Mistral-medium is exclusive to the paid API platform, emphasizing the company’s revenue strategy for its foundational models.
In summary, recent funding success, commitment to open technology, and innovative approach to model distribution position it as a significant player in the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence.
