Mistral AI Becomes Latest Unicorn, Raises $415M in Funding Round

By: Eliza Bennet

French artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Mistral AI, has achieved the rare unicorn status after raising a hefty $415 million in its second funding round in just seven months, bringing its valuation to a remarkable $2 billion post-funding. This milestone places it among the major players in the global AI industry.

Investors include prominent entities such as Andreessen-Horowitz and LightSpeed Ventures. The startup's hefty valuation and recent success highlight the growing interest and sustained investment in the AI industry, and particularly in generative AI tools over the past year.

Mistral AI has also launched beta access to its inaugural platform service, 'la plateforme', that provides chat endpoints to generate text based on textual instructions. Additionally, Mistral AI introduced Mixtral 8x7B, a new AI model that reportedly matches or even outperforms established models in some benchmarks.

Surging ahead with its increased valuation and new technical advancements, Mistral AI is all set to rival established players in the AI domain, such as OpenAI.