What is Mistral AI: What You Need to Know About This OpenAI Competitor

Mistral AI, the French startup behind the AI chatbot Le Chat and several advanced AI models, has become one of France’s most promising tech companies. It’s seen by many as the only European player capable of competing with OpenAI. Despite being valued at $6 billion, its global presence is still relatively small.

Le Chat, the company’s latest chatbot app, quickly became popular in France. Ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris, President Emmanuel Macron even encouraged viewers to download it via ChatGPT.

Still, Mistral AI faces big challenges. Competing with U.S. giants like OpenAI, all while sticking to its identity as an open, green, and independent AI lab, won’t be easy.

What Is Mistral AI?

Mistral AI, which was founded in 2023, aims to make advanced AI available to anyone. Although it does not specifically criticize OpenAI, the company advocates for transparency, unlike its American competitors. After launching on iOS and Android, its chatbot, Le Chat, topped the French App Store charts and received one million downloads in just two weeks.

Mistral has also released a growing suite of models:

• Mistral Large 2: The flagship language model.

• Pixtral Large: A 2024 multimodal model.

• Mistral Medium 3: Released in May 2025; designed for coding and STEM use.

• Devstral: A commercial-use coding model with an Apache 2.0 license.

• Codestral: An earlier coding model, but not available for commercial use.

• Les Ministraux: Compact models for mobile and edge devices.

• Mistral Saba: Specializing in Arabic.

• Mistral OCR: An OCR tool launched in March 2025 to convert PDFs into text.

Who Founded Mistral AI?

Mistral was founded by three AI researchers:

• Arthur Mensch (CEO): Formerly at DeepMind (Google).

• Timothée Lacroix (CTO): Formerly at Meta.

• Guillaume Lample (Chief Scientist): Also from Meta.

Other key advisors include Alan’s co-founders and former French digital minister Cédric O, whose involvement raised ethical concerns.

Are Mistral’s Models Open Source?

Some are. Mistral distinguishes between its proprietary models and open-source ones. Models like Devstral are released under the Apache 2.0 license, meaning they’re free for commercial use. One open-source highlight is Mistral NeMo, created with Nvidia and open-sourced in 2024.

How Does Mistral AI Make Money?

Mistral uses a mix of business models:

• Le Chat Pro: A $14.99/month premium plan for the chatbot.

• APIs for Businesses: Usage-based pricing for enterprise customers.

• Licensing: Companies can license their top-tier models.

• Strategic partnerships: A Major source of revenue, especially from deals revealed at the Paris AI Summit.

Despite this, Mistral’s total revenue is still estimated to be in the eight-digit range.

Key Partnerships

Mistral AI has formed important alliances:

• Microsoft: €15M investment + distribution via Azure.

• Agence France-Presse (AFP): Full access to AFP’s archive.

• French Army, CMA-CGM, Orange, Stellantis, IBM, and Helsing: Major enterprise collaborations.

• AI Campus Project: Joint effort with MGX, Nvidia, and Bpifrance in May 2025 to create an AI innovation hub in Paris.

How Much Funding Has Mistral AI Raised?

As of early 2025, Mistral AI has raised about €1 billion ($1.04B). Funding rounds include:

• June 2023: Record-setting $112M seed round led by Lightspeed, valuing the startup at $260M.

• December 2023: $415M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), valuing it at $2B.

• June 2024: €600M in debt and equity led by General Catalyst, pushing its valuation to $ 6 B.

Backers include Microsoft, Nvidia, Cisco, Samsung Ventures, Bpifrance, and Eric Schmidt.

What’s Next for Mistral AI?

CEO Arthur Mensch made it clear: Mistral isn’t for sale. An IPO is likely the goal. With rising pressure to justify its $6B valuation, the startup needs to grow its revenue fast — or risk becoming a cautionary tale. For now, Mistral remains one of Europe’s most ambitious AI bets.