Despite having no product and only just hiring staff, new A.I. company raises record $113 million just a month after being founded
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has rapidly become the prevailing buzzword in the business world, with tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft investing billions of dollars in a race to develop cutting-edge A.I. technology.
In a remarkable feat, a European company capitalized on the A.I. hype and raised a record-breaking €105 million ($113.5 million) in its seed funding round just weeks after its launch. According to Dealroom.co, a platform that tracks investments in startups, Mistral’s seed round is the largest ever recorded in Europe.
Interestingly, Mistral managed to attract substantial investment despite not having developed its first product yet, and its initial employees had only recently joined the company, as reported by the Financial Times.
The Financial Times reveals that Mistral has ambitious plans to launch a large-scale language model in early 2024, similar to the generative A.I. technology that powers OpenAI’s renowned chatbot, ChatGPT.
LinkedIn job postings indicate that Mistral is still actively hiring. The company describes itself as “an ambitious company operating in the field of generative artificial intelligence” and currently employs a team of 12 individuals.
Mistral aims to position A.I. as the driving force behind future internet and software advancements while striving to become a technological leader in the European A.I. landscape, as stated in one of their job advertisements.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Arthur Mensch, the CEO and co-founder of Mistral AI based in Paris, announced a significant milestone for the startup. Mensch, along with co-founders Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix, who serve as the company’s chief scientist and CTO respectively, have previous experience working at Facebook and Alphabet-owned DeepMind.
Mensch noted that Mistral has garnered support from a consortium of prominent international investors, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, French billionaire Xavier Niel, and French advertising giant JCDecaux.
The Financial Times also reported that the French state-supported investment bank Bpifrance has backed Mistral, showcasing France’s commitment to bolstering its position as a tech hub. Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s digital transition minister, expressed his support for Mistral on Twitter when news of its successful seed funding round broke. Fortune’s attempts to contact Mistral’s founding team for comment went unanswered.
In his Tuesday announcement, Mensch assured that Mistral would combine scientific excellence, an open-source approach, and a socially responsible vision in its A.I. endeavors. Mensch added that their background as A.I. researchers, coupled with their professional experiences at leading tech companies, convinced them of the potential for an innovative and responsible project that could widely disseminate the most promising technology of their generation. Proudly originating in France, their home country, Mistral aims to contribute to the emergence of a credible new player in generative artificial intelligence in Europe.
While A.I. has generated significant excitement among market observers, there are skeptics who question the hype surrounding the technology. James Penny, a seasoned investor and CIO of TAM Asset Management, recently cautioned that the A.I. hype is starting to resemble the dotcom era, referring to the burst of the tech bubble that followed excessive investment in internet-focused companies.
This article was initially featured on Fortune.com.
