Chipmaker ASML Holding is the biggest investor this time, joining the likes of NVIDIA, in this French startup which has a strategic partnership with Orange
Mistral AI has announced announcing a Series C funding round of €1.7 on “a post-money valuation of €11.7 billion”. This investment will fund research “to keep pushing the frontier of AI to tackle the most critical and sophisticated technological challenges faced by strategic industries,” Mistral said in a news release.
The Series C funding round is led by leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer, ASML Holding NV (ASML), with existing investors, DST Global, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Lightspeed and NVIDIA, chipping in.
ASML’s CEO, Christophe Fouquet, said, “ASML is proud to enter a strategic partnership with Mistral AI, and to be lead investor in this funding round. The collaboration between Mistral AI and ASML aims to generate clear benefits for ASML customers through innovative products and solutions enabled by AI, and will offer potential for joint research to address future opportunities.”
“This investment brings together two technology leaders operating in the same value chain. We have the ambition to help ASML and its numerous partners solve current and future engineering challenges through AI, and ultimately to advance the full semiconductor and AI value chain”, said Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch.
Recent beginnings
Mistral AI describes itself as “a pioneering French artificial intelligence startup founded in April 2023 by three visionary researchers: Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothée Lacroix”. The three were educated at École Polytechnique and worked at at Google DeepMind and Meta.
France is striving to be Europe’s leading AI nation: according to Tortoise Media’s most recent Global AI Index, published in September 2024, it stands in fifth place, behind the US, China, Singapore and the UK.
Strategic Orange partnership
In February, Orange announced a strategic partnership with Mistral AI with the lofty intention of enhancing “AI capabilities across Europe, driving innovation and delivering significant value to customers”.
R&D teams at Orange “will work hand in hand with those at Mistral AI”, the parties stated, to “assess the impact of large-scale, massive use of AI on telecommunications networks worldwide. They will define technological roadmaps to build the networks of tomorrow and address challenges related to connectivity and GPU availability. The goal is to ensure all customers have smooth and efficient access to advanced AI solutions.”
The partners will also work on leveraging AI to improve the current networks’ performance. Christel Heydemann, CEO of Orange, claimed, “This collaboration is unprecedented as it fully incorporates the research dimension. It will promote the massive adoption of AI and enable its full potential through high-quality networks, tailored for real-time conversations. Together, we firmly believe that generative AI can positively transform businesses when technology and trust come together”.
