Mistral AI in Talks with MGX and Bpifrance for $1 Billion Investment.

Mistral AI, a French AI startup, is reportedly in talks with Abu Dhabi's MGX fund for a new funding round of up to $1 billion. The company is also in talks with French lenders, including Bpifrance, for a debt financing of several hundred million euros. A successful deal would deepen the technology cooperation between France and the UAE in a increasingly geopolitically sensitive sector. Mistral is considered Europe's most ambitious AI startup, having raised over €1 billion since its founding in 2023 and being valued at €5.8 billion after a funding round last year.

Title: Mistral AI Seeks $1 Billion in New Funding Round

French AI startup Mistral AI is reportedly in talks to secure up to $1 billion in equity funding from investors, including Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund, according to Bloomberg [1]. Additionally, Mistral is discussing hundreds of millions of euros in debt financing with French lenders, including Bpifrance SACA [2]. If successful, this deal would further strengthen Mistral's position in the European AI market and deepen technology cooperation between France and the UAE.

Mistral, known for its Le Chat chatbot, is one of the most significant players in Europe’s AI landscape. The startup has raised over €1 billion since its inception and is valued at €5.8 billion following a recent funding round [2]. Mistral is currently working with MGX and Nvidia to build Europe’s largest AI data center campus, which will serve as the technical backbone for France's AI strategy.

The new funding round is primarily intended to support the launch of Mistral Compute, a new AI cloud infrastructure that will be set up entirely in France. This initiative aims to enhance Mistral’s position in the European AI market and bolster France’s digital autonomy in an industry dominated by American and Chinese companies [3]. The debt financing being negotiated would be used to build Mistral Compute’s hardware base, which is expected to run on 18,000 of Nvidia’s latest Grace Blackwell chips [3].

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch has emphasized the company’s ambition to move away from its current role as a model builder and develop into a fully-fledged AI cloud player. The rollout of its own platform would offer more scalability and strategic control over the use of AI within Europe [3].

The discussions about the new financing round are still ongoing, and the exact valuation after the deal remains uncertain. However, it is clear that Mistral is further scaling up its international ambitions. The company has recently launched several new products, including a programming assistant and a new generation of LLMs focused on reasoning, which have contributed to its commercial growth, particularly in Europe [3].

References:
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/08/mistral-is-reportedly-in-talks-to-raise-1b/
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mistral-ai-rep-ortedly-talks-175236995.html
[3] https://www.techzine.eu/news/infrastructure/132892/mistral-aims-to-raise-a-billion-for-french-ai-cloud-service/