French startup Mistral raised 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in a funding round led by Samsung, giving it a post-money valuation of more than 21 billion euros, or approximately $24 billion. This represents nearly double the $12.5 billion valuation the company held a year ago, after a funding round led by Dutch lithography machine maker ASML. The investment also included the Scaleup Europe Fund, a fund backed by the European Commission and managed by EQT, as well as existing investor PSG Equity. CEO Arthur Mensch said the funds would be used to build proprietary data centers and achieve 100% growth in compute capacity over the next five years. The Paris-based company is targeting annual recurring revenue exceeding $1 billion this year, positioning itself as a non-U.S. and non-Chinese alternative in the artificial intelligence industry.
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