Artificial Intelligence | June 22, 2023
Mistral AI, a startup based in Paris and created just four weeks ago, has just received one of the largest initial funding rounds in Europe to date. The company, specialized in the development of artificial intelligence models, and founded by three AI researchers who previously worked at Google and Meta, has raised 105 million euros with the goal of competing against OpenAI and creating an alternative to ChatGPT.
One of Mistral AI’s main investors is Lightspeed Venture Partners, who has also invested in companies like Snapchat and StabilityAI. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, has also invested in Mistral AI, as well as a French telecommunications entrepreneur and the investment bank Bpifrance.
Mistral AI’s investment is undoubtedly great news for Europe, especially considering the concerns surrounding AI models like Google’s. In fact, the Irish Data Protection Commission has reversed Google’s intention to deploy Bard in Europe, mainly due to the lack of guarantees from Google to protect the data of European users.
Furthermore, the European Parliament has taken a step further in approving the Artificial Intelligence Act, which will soon enter into negotiations.
With this investment, and only one month of existence, Mistral AI is already valued at 240 million euros. The company’s goal, as mentioned earlier, is to create a European alternative to ChatGPT or Bard, language models based on artificial intelligence. Financial Times reports that the team has started working on their first AI product a few days ago and they expect to launch it early next year.
Mistral AI is specifically founded by Arthur Mensch, who is also the CEO of the startup and previously worked as a researcher at DeepMind, Google’s AI laboratory. Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, former employees of Meta who also worked in the company’s AI division, are also co-founders of Mistral AI.
The team, as well as the investor partners, are optimistic about the development of this language model capable of performing generative AI tasks due to the experience of its founders. However, the investors are aware of the challenges of launching a new AI company. “At this stage, for better or worse, the capital requirements in computing and top talent make it a fairly capital-intensive game,” says Antoine Moyroud, spokesperson for Lightspeed.
