Mistral AI, a French company and creator of the AI assistant Le Chat, as well as several foundational models, is considered one of France’s most promising tech startups and is arguably the only European company capable of competing with OpenAI. Despite its $6 billion valuation, its global market share remains relatively low.
The recent launch of its chat assistant on mobile app stores generated significant hype, particularly in its home country. French President Emmanuel Macron encouraged the public to download Le Chat, developed by Mistral, instead of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in a TV interview prior to the AI Action Summit in Paris.
Although this attention may be encouraging, Mistral AI still faces challenges in competing with the likes of OpenAI while maintaining its self-definition as “the world’s greenest and leading independent AI lab.”
What is Mistral AI?
Since its inception in 2023, Mistral AI has secured substantial funding with the goal of “putting frontier AI in the hands of everyone.” This slogan is intended to emphasize the company’s advocacy for openness in AI, although it is not a direct challenge to OpenAI.
Mistral AI’s alternative to ChatGPT, the chat assistant Le Chat, is now available on iOS and Android. It achieved 1 million downloads within two weeks of its mobile release, even securing the top spot for free downloads on the iOS App Store in France.
In addition to Le Chat, Mistral AI offers a suite of models, which includes:
Who are Mistral AI’s founders?
The three founders of Mistral AI have a background in AI research at major U.S. tech companies with significant operations in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch previously worked at Google’s DeepMind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and Chief Scientist Officer Guillaume Lample are former Meta employees.
Co-founding advisers include Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (also a board member) and Charles Gorintin from health insurance startup Alan, as well as former Digital Minister Cédric O, whose involvement sparked controversy due to his previous role.
Are Mistral AI’s models open source?
Not all of Mistral AI’s models are open source. The company differentiates its premier models, whose weights are not available for commercial purposes, from its free models, for which it provides weight access under the Apache 2.0 license.
Free models include research models such as Mistral NeMo, which was built in collaboration with Nvidia and open-sourced in July 2024.
How does Mistral AI make money?
While many of Mistral AI’s offerings are free or have free tiers, the company plans to generate revenue from Le Chat’s paid tiers. Introduced in February 2025, Le Chat’s Pro plan is priced at $14.99 per month.
On the B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes its premier models through APIs with usage-based pricing. Enterprises can also license these models, and the company likely generates a significant share of its revenue from strategic partnerships, some of which it highlighted during the Paris AI Summit.
Overall, however, Mistral AI’s revenue is reportedly still in the eight-digit range, according to multiple sources.
What partnerships has Mistral AI closed?
In 2024, Mistral AI entered a deal with Microsoft that included a strategic partnership for distributing its AI models through Microsoft’s Azure platform and a €15 million investment. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded that the deal didn’t qualify for investigation due to its small size. However, it also sparked criticism in the EU.
In January 2025, Mistral AI signed a deal with press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) to enable Le Chat to query the AFP’s entire text archive dating back to 1983.
Mistral AI also secured strategic partnerships with France’s army and job agency, German defense tech startup Helsing, IBM, Orange, and Stellantis.
How much funding has Mistral AI raised to date?
As of February 2025, Mistral AI has raised approximately €1 billion in capital, equivalent to around $1.04 billion at the current exchange rate. This includes debt financing, as well as several equity financing rounds raised in close succession.
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