What is Mistral AI? Everything you need to know about Openai’s competitors

Mistral AI, the French company behind AI assistant chat and some basic models, is officially considered one of France’s most promising high-tech startup And it’s The only European company that can definitely compete with Openai. However, its global market share remains relatively low compared to its $6 billion valuation.

However, the recent launch of chat assistants on mobile app stores has encountered hype, especially in their home countries. “Download Le Chat, made by Mistral, not Openai or anything else,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. In a TV interview It’s ahead of the AI ​​Action Summit in Paris.

This wave of attention may be encouraging, but Mistral AI faces challenges when competing with things like openness.

What is Mistral AI?

Since its inception in 2023, Mistral AI has raised a significant amount of money with the ambition to “put frontier AI in everyone’s hands.” While this is not a direct jab at Openai, the slogan aims to highlight the company’s advocacy for openness in AI.

ChatGpt alternatives, Chat Assistant Le Chat is still available Available for iOS and Android. It has reached 1 million downloads Two weeks after the mobile release, I grabbed France’s top spot for free downloads on the iOS App Store.

This includes the following in addition to the Mistral AI model suite:

• Mistral Large Scale 2major large-scale language model exchanges Mistral Large.
• Pixtral big, It was announced in 2024 As a new addition to Pixtral Family of Multimodal Models.
• Mistral Media 3Released in May 2025, it promises to provide efficiency without compromising performance, making it ideal for coding and STEM tasks.
• Developeran AI model designed for coding and openly available under the Apache 2.0 license. This means that it can be used commercially without restrictions.
• Code Strullthe previous generation AI model of code, but the license banned commercial applications.
• “Lesitstrou” is a model’s family Optimized for edge devices Phones etc.
• Mistral Saba, Focused on Arabic.

March 2025, Company Mistral OCR has been introducedOptical Character Recognition (OCR) API that can convert PDFs into text files to make it easier for AI models to ingest.

Who was the founder of Mistral AI?

The three founders of Mistral AI share a background in AI research at a major US high-tech company operating important businesses in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch once worked at Google’s Deep Mind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and top scientist Guillaume Lample were former meta staffers.

Also included in co-founding advisors Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (A board member) and health insurance startup Alan Charles Gollintin, and former digital minister Cedric O. It sparked a controversy Because of his previous role.

Is the Mistral AI model open source?

Not all of them. Mistral AI distinguishes its premier model Weight It is not available for commercial purposes from the free model that provides weight access under the Apache 2.0 license.

The free model includes research models such as Mistral Nemo, which was built by Startup in collaboration with Nvidia Open Source July 2024.

How does Mistral AI make money?

Many of the Mistral AI offers are free I have a free tier nowMistral AI is planning to drive some income from Le Chat’s paid class. The Le Chat Pro Plan, which was introduced in February 2025, costs $14.99 per month.

On the purely B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes the premier model through the API with usage-based pricing. Companies can also license these models. It is also possible that the company is generating a large portion of its revenue from strategic partnerships. During the Paris AI Summit.

Overall, however, Mistral AI’s revenues are reportedly still in the eight-digit range, according to multiple sources.

Which partnerships did Mistral AI close?

In 2024, Mistral AI signed an agreement with Microsoft, including a strategic partnership to distribute AI models through an investment of 15 million euros with Microsoft’s Azure platform. UK Competitive Markets Agency (CMA) I quickly concluded Because of this small scale, the transaction was not subject to investigation. But that also caused some Criticism In the EU.

January 2025, Mistral AI Signed a contract with news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) Queries chat through the entire AFP text archive dating back to 1983.

Mistral AI also secured a strategic partnership in France Army and Employment Agent, Major Maritime CMAGerman defense technology startup Hellsing, IBM, orangeand Stellantis.

In May 2025, Mistral AI announced that it would take part in creating the AI Campus in Paris Regionas part of a joint venture with UAE investment companies MGX, Nvidia and the French state-owned investment bank. bpifrance.

How much funding has Mistral AI raised so far?

As of February 2025, Mistral AI had raised about 1 billion euros of capital to date, and about $1.04 billion at its current exchange rate. This includes several debt financing and several closely-sequential equity funding rounds.

In June 2023, and before it releases its first model, Mistral AI is Records a $112 million seed round Leading by LightSpeed ​​Venture Partners. Sources at the time said that the seeds were round – Europe’s largest – We valued the one-month startup at $260 million.

Other investors in this seed round include Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Headline, Jcdecaux Holding, La Famiglia, Localglobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina and Xavier Niel.

It was closed just six months later 385 million euros Series A ($415 million at the time), at a reported $2 billion valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) and was accompanied by participation from existing backers Lightspeed, BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Conviction, Elad Gil, General Catalyst, and Salesforce.

Conversion investment of $16.3 million Microsoft was created with Mistral AI as part of a partnership announced in February 2024, presented as a Series A expansion, suggesting an unchanging rating.

In June 2024, Mistral AI grew up 600 million euros mixed with equity and debt (About $640 million at the exchange rate at the time). Long-term rounds It was led by General Catalyst at a $6 billion valuation along with well-known investors including Cisco, IBM, Nvidia and Samsung Venture Investment Corporation.

What does the Mistral AI exit look like?

Mistral is “not for sale” Mensch spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2025. “Of course (the IPO) is a plan.”

This makes sense given how much the startups have raised so far. Even large sales may not provide sufficient multiples for investors, let alone sovereign concerns depending on the acquirer.

However, the only way to ensure that rumours of a constant acquisition are to scale revenue to a level that can even justify a near $6 billion valuation remotely. Either way, look forward to it.

This story was originally published on February 28, 2025 and updated regularly.