French startup Mistral AI closes $415M funding round

French artificial intelligence (AI) startup Mistral AI has announced it raised €385 million ($415 million) in its latest funding round to go toward developing its technology and open-source software.

Andreessen Horowitz and the company’s initial backers, Lightspeed Ventures, led the round, which closed on Dec. 11. This follows a previous funding round earlier this summer through which Mistral raised $113 million in seed funding. The company is currently valued at around $2 billion.

Mistral AI focuses on open-source technology for generative AI tools, chatbot development and customizable features. It aims to make its products available to the general public in early 2024.

The company was founded in March by former leads at Google’s DeepMind and Meta (the Facebook and Instagram parent company).

Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI’s CEO, commented on the latest funding round saying:

Additional investors in the round included Salesforce Inc., Bpifrance and Eric Schmidt among others.

Cointelegraph contacted Mistral AI for additional comments on the recent investment development but hasn’t yet received a response.

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In the meantime, regulators in the European Union reached what has been described as a “historic” agreement on AI requirements on Friday Dec. 8. 

The agreement touches on many aspects of AI, including governmental use for biometric surveillance and regulating powerful AI models such as ChatGPT, along with transparency requirements before entry into the public market.

The agreement also covers elements that intersect with other areas of EU legislation, such as copyright matters and training methodologies.

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