Mistral AI has closed a 3 billion euro, $3.5 billion, Series D funding round at a valuation of more than 21 billion euro, the French startup said on Tuesday.. The company described the deal as the largest equity raise completed by a privately held European technology company. Samsung Electronics led the round, with EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund and existing backer PSG Equity as co-leads..
The funding nearly doubled Mistral’s valuation from 11.7 billion euro in its Series C round a year ago. Dutch chipmaker ASML led that earlier round.. New investors in the latest financing include private equity firm Advent, funds managed by BlackRock, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg as a state investor.
Returning shareholders include Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, General Catalyst, Lightspeed, Salesforce Ventures and BNP Paribas CIB.. Reuters reported in July that Samsung was in talks to invest as much as 1 billion euro in Mistral. Samsung’s lead role in the round extends a pattern of large industrial companies backing the startup..
The capital will fund compute expansion, frontier model research and international growth, the company said. Mistral operates in 20 countries and has more than 125 enterprise customers, including Airbus and HSBC.. The round also supports Mistral’s shift from a model maker to what it calls a “neocloud” provider.
The company said that strategy combines open-weight models, dedicated compute infrastructure and deployment products that let customers retain control of their data.. Mistral raised $830 million in debt financing in March 2026 for data center construction near Paris. The company has said it aims to bring as much as a gigawatt of capacity online by 2030..
Chief Financial Officer Johan Bergqvist told Reuters that Mistral is on track to reach $1 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026. Asked about a possible initial public offering, Bergqvist said it was “always of course an optionality for us going forward” but that there was no immediate timetable..
Featured image credit. Tags: FeaturedMistral
