Mistral AI, an AI startup co-founded by alums from Google's DeepMind and Meta

 

Mistral AI, an AI startup co-founded by alums from Google's DeepMind and Meta, raised €105M ($113M) in seed funding.  The four-week-old startup is building large language models and generative AI applications, competing head-to-head with OpenAI. Mistral was valued at €240M ($260M) at the seed round. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the funding round with participation from JCDecaux Holding, Motier Ventures, Headline, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, LocalGlobe, and others.  The French startup counts Bpifrance, French telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt as shareholders.  Mistral AI intends to use the proceeds to develop its enterprise-focused text-based generative AI models, with a target to release them in 2024.  CEO Arthur Mensch co-founded the firm along with Timothée Lacroix (CTO) and Guillaume Lample (Chief Science Officer).  Per Dealroom.co, Mistral's funding round is the largest seed round raised by a European startup to date.  VCs have invested $4B in AI startups in Europe, including the U.K. and Israel. The figure pales in comparison to the $25B invested in AI startups in the U.S.