Today in AI: Mistral Targets $10B Valuation in New Funding Round

Mistral AI  is reportedly targeting a $10 billion valuation in its next funding round.

That’s according to a report Friday (Aug. 1) by the Financial Times (FT), which says this is part of a push by the French startup to compete with wealthier artificial intelligence (AI) competitors in China and the U.S.

Sources told the FT that Mistral is in talks with investors about raising $1 billion. The company’s last valuation was 5.8 billion euros, or $6.7 billion. The news follows a report last month from Bloomberg News about a planned $1 billion funding round by Mistral. PYMNTS has contacted Mistral for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

The new funding would fuel the commercial rollout of Mistral’s Le Chat chatbot and the ongoing improvement of its large language models, sources said. 

The FT notes that Mistral is viewed as Europe’s chief hope for a homegrown AI company that can compete in the fast-growing field. French President Emmanuel Macron has been an especially vocal supporter, contending that Europe needs to have a “sovereign” option for AI so it doesn’t have to depend only on the U.S. and China.

As PYMNTS reported in June, Mistral recently launched a landmark collaboration with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to develop next-generation AI cloud services in France.

During a panel at the Viva Tech 2025 conference, Macron, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch “showcased a rare confluence of political power, industrial ambition and startup ingenuity,” that report said.

“This is a game changer,” Macron said, praising the new partnership as crucial to strengthening France’s technological independence. 

He also pointed out that the project would strengthen French sovereignty with its own AI cloud, data centers and computing capacity.

“The initiative, which centers around building AI data centers in France using Nvidia chips, would expand Mistral’s business model,” the report added. “The AI startup — widely considered Europe’s OpenAI — would transition from merely being a model developer to a vertically-integrated AI cloud provider.”

The FT had reported in June that Mistral’s revenues have increased several times over since raising funds in 2024 and are on pace to exceed $100 million a year for the first time, if it can keep up its sales momentum.

The report also points out that a relatively small number of major customers are fueling that level of growth. Sources said Mistral had closed or was about to close a handful of commercial contracts that would each be worth $100 million or more across a three-to-five year stretch.

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