Europe’s AI bet: Paris-based Mistral secures €1.7 billion and nearly doubles its valuation
Paris-based Mistral AI, one of Europe’s most competitive AI startups, has raised €1.7 billion in a Series C funding round led by Dutch chip equipment giant ASML.
The round gives ASML an 11% stake, making it Mistral’s largest shareholder, and values the French startup at €11.7 billion post-money, nearly doubling its valuation since June 2024.
The round also saw participation from existing backers including Nvidia, DST Global, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, and Lightspeed. ASML is contributing €1.3 billion of the total investment, and its Chief Financial Officer Roger Dassen will take a seat on Mistral’s strategic committee.
“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.
Founded in 2023 by Arthur Mensch, a former DeepMind researcher, alongside ex-Meta researchers Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, Mistral has quickly established itself as Europe’s leading contender against U.S. rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as emerging Chinese players like DeepSeek.
The company develops LLMs and recently announced its first reasoning model, designed for advanced problem solving in mathematics and coding.
Mistral now employs more than 350 people and has secured contracts worth over €1.4 billion since its launch, with annual contract value already surpassing €300 million. Its customers include major groups such as Stellantis, CMA CGM, and French government departments.
Arthur Mensch, Mistral’s chief executive, said that for both economic and strategic reasons, “it’s important for European companies not to have too much dependency on US technology”.
The investment also has industrial implications. ASML, best known as the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography systems essential for producing advanced chips, plans to leverage Mistral’s AI capabilities to optimise its tools and expand product development. In the short term, Mistral’s models will be used to enhance chipmaking processes, while in the longer term both companies are eyeing opportunities to bridge the semiconductor and AI value chains.
“We started to look for a partner, because we thought that this is not something we should try to do ourselves,” noted Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML said.
While European policymakers often highlight technology sovereignty as a key issue, both ASML played down that framing. Fouquet acknowledged sovereignty as “an additional benefit” but stressed that the decision was primarily about mutual business value.
Mensch added that partnering with ASML will allow Mistral to build systems that go beyond the generic functions offered by other AI models.
This deal brings Mistral’s total funding to nearly €2.8 billion since launch, cementing its position as one of Europe’s most valuable AI startup. However, it still lags behind U.S. peers, with OpenAI valued at $500 billion in a recent secondary share sale and Anthropic at $183 billion.
Despite this gap, Mistral’s focus on industrial applications and strong European customer base highlights a differentiated approach.
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