Mistral AI, the French tech company behind AI assistant Le Chat and multiple foundational models, is quickly becoming one of France’s most promising startups, with a valuation of $6 billion. While its global market share remains modest, Mistral has recently garnered attention with the launch of Le Chat on mobile app stores, especially in France. French president Emmanuel Macron even urged citizens to download Le Chat over other AI assistants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Mistral AI, founded in 2023, has raised significant funds to push its mission of providing frontier AI to the public. Their flagship product, Le Chat, reached 1 million downloads within two weeks of launching on iOS and Android. This success, alongside their growing suite of models, positions Mistral as a key player in the AI field. Their models include:
- Mistral Large 2, the main language model
- Pixtral Large, a new multimodal model
- Codestral, a generative AI for coding
- Les Ministraux, optimized for edge devices
- Mistral Saba, focused on Arabic
- Mistral OCR, an optical character recognition API
The AI’s team includes CEO Arthur Mensch, who previously worked at Google’s DeepMind, CTO Timothée Lacroix, and Chief Scientist Guillaume Lample, both of whom come from Meta.
While Mistral AI is competing with giants like OpenAI, the company distinguishes itself by providing open-source models, including the Mistral NeMo, a collaborative research model developed with Nvidia. Despite offering free models, Mistral monetizes through Le Chat’s premium tiers and enterprise partnerships. Their paid plans for Le Chat began in February 2025, with a $14.99/month Pro plan.
Mistral AI’s partnerships include a €15 million investment from Microsoft in 2024, strategic collaborations with Agence France-Presse, France’s military, shipping giant CMA, IBM, and more. To date, Mistral AI has raised about €1 billion ($1.04 billion), with investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and Cisco backing the company.
Mistral has made it clear it is not for sale. CEO Arthur Mensch has expressed the company’s goal of an IPO, and with its rapid growth and strong financial backing, it is aiming for significant revenue levels to justify its valuation.
