In a massive funding round, Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI has raised a whopping $640 million to take on the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.
The company, founded by alumni from Meta and Google’s DeepMind, is working on creating artificial intelligence models that can rival the best in the industry. With this funding, Mistral AI is now valued at $6 billion.
🔎 Mistral raises $644M at $6.4B valuation.
— TheMacroSift.eth (@themacrosift) June 12, 2024
It’s the 6th most valuable generative AI startup:#Mistral pic.twitter.com/y7urOeRkR5
Mistral AI’s goal is to create foundational models that can be used by anyone, and they’ve already released several models under an open-source license. This means that companies and individuals can use these models for free, with no restrictions.
However, the company’s most advanced models, such as Mistral Large, are proprietary and can be accessed through an API for a fee.
The company has also developed a chat assistant called Le Chat, which is currently free to use. And, they have partnerships with cloud providers like Microsoft Azure to make their technology more accessible.
With this new funding, Mistral AI plans to continue pushing the boundaries of AI and make state-of-the-art technology available to everyone. The company’s CEO, Arthur Mensch, said that this funding guarantees the company’s independence and will help them achieve their goals.
It’s exciting to see what Mistral AI will do next, especially as they start to attract corporate customers to turn their engineering work into revenue.