Mistral AI raises $3.5 billion in Series D, valuation tops $24 billion

Paris-based generative AI startup Mistral AI said Tuesday it nearly doubled its valuation to more than $24 billion after a $3.5 billion Series D. Samsung Electronics led the round, joined by co-leads Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity.

Funding history and scale

The Series D comes nearly one year after Mistral’s $2 billion Series C, which valued the company at $13.7 billion. Since its 2023 inception, Mistral has raised $7.5 billion. The new round now positions Mistral as the most highly valued foundation model company out of Europe.

Frontier lab valuations and global landscape

Mistral’s valuation places it among seven private frontier labs valued above $20 billion on The Crunchbase Unicorn board, with eight if ByteDance is included. The remaining labs outside Europe are based in the U.S. and China.

What the money will fund

Mistral said the capital will “significantly expand Mistral’s frontier research” and help it expand infrastructure and accelerate commercial growth and international footprint. The company operates across 20 countries and counts more than 125 global enterprises as customers, including Airbus, ASML, BMW, and HSBC.

Competition and enterprise deployment

Mistral builds AI models for generating text, writing code, and analyzing documents, competing with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. It also emphasizes business controls by offering models that can be customized and run on customers’ own systems instead of relying entirely on third-party cloud providers.

European venture momentum

Europe’s venture funding has strengthened this year. In Q2, Europe posted its strongest quarter in four years, with startups raising $24 billion, up around a third quarter over quarter and two-thirds higher than the $14.4 billion raised in Q2 2025. Mistral’s earlier $2 billion Series C was the largest venture round raised by a European AI company at the time, and this latest raise has surpassed it. Other large AI deals in Europe this year include Isomorphic Labs, which raised a $2.1 billion Series B in May led by Thrive Capital and Nscale, which raised a $2 billion Series C at a $14.6 billion valuation in March co-led by 8090 Industries and Aker.

Mistral’s Series D reinforces how quickly European AI funding is concentrating around large foundation model builders, with capital flowing into research capacity, infrastructure, and enterprise distribution.