French artificial intelligence startup Mistral has completed a new round of financing of 3 billion euros, approximately 3.5 billion US dollars, with its latest valuation exceeding 21 billion euros, or about 24 billion US dollars. As competition from local European AI intensifies, the company is accelerating its efforts to expand its computing power and model capabilities in an attempt to narrow the gap with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Chinese developers.

The company's valuation continues to soar after three years.

This round is a Series D financing, led by Samsung Electronics. Funds managed by Scaleup Europe Fund and EQT, which are supported by the European Union, as well as existing shareholder PSG Equity, also participated in the investment. Mistral stated that this is the largest equity financing completed by a European technology company.

Compared to the valuation of 11.7 billion euros after its last round of financing in September 2025, this valuation has significantly increased. At that time, the semiconductor equipment company ASML invested 1.3 billion euros and became an important shareholder.

Funds will be invested in proprietary computing power.

Mistral indicates that the new funds will be mainly used to expand computing infrastructure, train more powerful AI models, and drive international business expansion. The company's CEO Arthur Mensch stated to CNBC that Mistral ultimately hopes to rely more on its own computing power rather than primarily on third-party infrastructure.

This initiative has already begun to be implemented. Mistral announced earlier this year that it would invest 1.2 billion euros in Sweden to build a data center. This is the company's first major infrastructure expansion outside of France, and the facilities are expected to go into operation in 2027.

According to the company's plan, by 2030, Mistral also hopes to build up to 1 gigawatt of local AI computing power in Europe.

Focus on serving key enterprises and regulated industries

Unlike chatbots that mainly target consumers, Mistral places a greater emphasis on corporate business. The company aims to help clients build customized AI systems and models based on their own data, infrastructure, and operational needs.

This route is more attractive to government departments and industries with higher regulatory requirements, as these clients usually pay more attention to the location of data storage and the controllability of model deployment. Mistral states that the company is currently operating in 20 countries, serving over 125 large enterprise clients, including Airbus, ASML, and HSBC.

Annual recurring revenue target remains unchanged.

In terms of commercialization, Arthur Mensch previously stated that the company is expected to achieve annual recurring revenue of over $1 billion in 2026. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Mistral still expects to reach this goal by the end of this year.

However, Mistral still faces fierce competition. In addition to the large American AI companies, Chinese open-source model developers are also making rapid progress. This significant financing round led by Samsung means that this French company, which was established just three years ago, has obtained more substantial funds to continue to catch up with its leading competitors.