Mistral AI: Everything You Need to Know About OpenAI’s Rising Competitor

07.03.2025

Mistral AI, the French AI company behind the chat assistant Le Chat and several advanced models, has emerged as one of Europe’s most promising tech startups. Despite its impressive $6 billion valuation, its global market share remains relatively modest. However, the recent launch of Le Chat on mobile platforms generated significant buzz in France, even earning public endorsement from President Emmanuel Macron.

Founded in 2023, Mistral AI aims to make cutting-edge AI widely accessible, emphasizing openness in contrast to some competitors. The company’s suite of AI models includes Mistral Large 2, the multimodal Pixtral Large, and Codestral for coding tasks. It also recently introduced Mistral OCR, an optical character recognition tool designed to improve AI data processing.

The company was co-founded by former DeepMind researcher Arthur Mensch (CEO) and ex-Meta engineers Timothée Lacroix (CTO) and Guillaume Lample (Chief Scientist). While Mistral AI promotes open-source AI, not all its models are publicly available; some are commercialized through APIs and enterprise licenses. In early 2025, it also introduced a paid subscription for Le Chat to boost revenue.

Mistral AI has secured major strategic partnerships, including a deal with Microsoft for cloud distribution, collaborations with France’s military and job agency, and agreements with companies like IBM and Nvidia. It has raised over €1 billion ($1.04 billion) in funding, attracting investors like Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and Lightspeed.

Despite its rapid growth, Mistral AI faces the challenge of proving its long-term financial viability. While CEO Arthur Mensch has ruled out selling the company, an IPO remains a likely future move. To justify its valuation and compete with OpenAI, Mistral AI must scale its revenue and expand its global presence.