Mistral is in funding talks at a €20bn valuation

This article was published on June 12, 2026 Europe's AI champion is seeking about €3bn, nearly doubling its September price. It needs the cash to keep pace with far richer rivals in the US and China. Mistral is in funding talks to raise about €3bn ($3.5bn) at a valuation of roughly €20bn, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the discussions. That would nearly double the price investors put on Europe’s leading AI startup just months ago. The talks are early, and the terms could change. The valuation may even climb higher if demand is strong, the people said. Mistral declined to comment. The Paris-based company was valued at €11.7bn in September, when chip-equipment giant ASML led its round. ASML put in €1.3bn for an 11 per cent stake and is now Mistral’s largest shareholder. The new raise would top up a war chest that Mistral is burning fast. It is building data centres it owns and runs, including a major site near Paris and a €1.2bn build-out in Sweden. Owning the compute, not just the models, is the strategy. Mistral was founded in 2023 by researchers from Google DeepMind and Meta. It sells itself as Europe’s sovereign alternative to American AI, and chief exe