Samsung in talks to invest €1 billion in Mistral at €20 billion valuation

Samsung in talks to invest in Mistral at 20 billion euro valuation, FT reports

July 22 (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung (005930.KS), opens new tab is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of euros in the ⁠AI start-up Mistral, as part of a fundraising round that could value the group at roughly €20 ⁠billion($22.81 billion), Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing ⁠sources. Reuters could not immediately verify the ⁠report. ($1 = 0.8767 euros) Reporting by ⁠Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Samsung in talks to invest in Mistral at €20bn valuation

Samsung is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of euros in the AI start-up Mistral, a move that would bolster the French company's efforts to become a leading alternative to US technology groups. The South Korean conglomerate is discussing an investment in Mistral as part of a broader fundraising round that could value the group at roughly €20bn, according to people familiar with the matter. Samsung, which had previously backed the group through its venture arm, could invest about €1bn in the new round, one of the people said. The talks reflect a broader push by AI developers to secure partnerships with semiconductor suppliers as the industry grapples with surging demand that far outstrips the supply of computing power. Mistral is seeking to capitalise on growing interest from European and Asian companies and governments for alternatives to leading US AI models, after the Trump administration blocked foreign access to Anthropic's latest Mythos and Fable models last month. The US export controls on Anthropic have sparked a wave of interest in "sovereign AI" capacity. From its inception, Mistral has focused on "open" AI models that can be customised and controlled by customers, meaning no company or government can switch them off. Samsung has previously invested in Mistral through its venture arm. Overall, Mistral is seeking to raise several billion euros as part of a new round, the people added, which comes less than a year after it was valued at €12bn in a deal led by Dutch chip equipment giant ASML. Swedish investor EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund is also in talks to back the fundraising round, these people said. Talks remain ongoing and the terms could yet shift, with no final decisions yet taken, the people cautioned. Sifted previously reported on EQT's discussions. The vehicle, which is expected to exceed €5bn, is backed by Brussels and managed by EQT. It has also attracted backing from private investors including Novo Holdings and Santander to fund promising European companies in competitive sectors such as AI. Mistral, Samsung and EQT declined to comment. The Paris-based group raised €1.7bn in September, with most of those funds coming from ASML, which is using its AI models to accelerate production of the sophisticated machinery used to make cutting-edge chips. Earlier this year, Mistral raised $830mn in its debut debt financing to support the construction of Nvidia-powered data centres across Europe. Mistral and Samsung have previously discussed collaboration in the AI memory sector, South Korean media reported in April. Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory chips and has seen its profits surge over the past year as rising AI demand drives up prices. The US export controls on Anthropic sparked a wave of interest in "sovereign AI" capacity. From its inception, But Mistral's open models face growing competition from China. Moonshot's latest Kimi model has sparked a new round of fears that low-cost Chinese rivals were narrowing the gap with US frontier AI systems. Founded three years ago, Mistral has become Europe's most valuable AI start-up. Chief executive Arthur Mensch told the FT in February that Mistral's annual recurring revenues were on track to exceed $1bn by the end of this year, following a push to expand its enterprise customers. Mistral's talks with Samsung come as the AI industry faces an unprecedented chip crunch, as suppliers of memory and other semiconductors needed to run and train AI systems rush to expand capacity. Last month, US memory manufacturer Micron invested in Anthropic as part of a wide-ranging partnership that included a long-term memory and storage supply agreement. This week, Mistral struck an expanded partnership with Microsoft, one of its earliest investors, that sees the US software group making a "multibillion-dollar commitment" to use the French AI start-up's computing infrastructure. The Microsoft deal will help Mistral fund its own investment in computing capacity by providing a stable source of revenue that it could borrow against, as it adds thousands of Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin chips. Mistral's latest models will also be made available through Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing service. Additional reporting from Song Jung-a in Seoul

Samsung reportedly in talks to back Mistral at €20bn valuation

The Financial Times says the South Korean group could invest hundreds of millions of euros in France's AI champion, though neither company has confirmed the discussions. Samsung is reportedly weighing a bet on Europe's best-funded AI startup. The South Korean conglomerate is in talks to invest in Mistral as part of a fundraising round that could value the Paris company at roughly €20bn, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the discussions. The size of Samsung's cheque is where the reporting turns slippery. The FT put it at "hundreds of millions of euros," while several summaries of the story have rounded that up to about €1bn. What is more firmly established is the shape of the round itself: Mistral is raising around €3bn, nearly doubling the €11.7bn valuation it commanded less than a year ago. A multibillion-dollar Microsoft deal to carry its models on Azure sits in the same recent stretch. Neither Samsung nor Mistral has confirmed the talks, and both declined to comment when contacted by Reuters, which relayed the FT's account. That is the standard caveat for a story of this kind, and worth keeping in view. Early-stage funding discussions collapse, get repriced, or quietly change their cast of investors all the time, and the FT itself noted that both the amount and the valuation remain subject to change. Mistral has spent the past year assembling exactly the sort of backer list a sovereignty pitch requires. Its September Series C raised €1.7bn at an €11.7bn valuation, a round in which the Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML wrote a €1.3bn cheque to become the company's largest shareholder. EQT's Scaleup Europe fund has also been named among the parties circling the new round, according to the reporting, though the full investor line-up has not been disclosed. Should it close on the reported terms, Mistral's total funding would climb to somewhere around €6.5bn in equity and debt combined. For Samsung, the logic is less about European flag-waving than about supply and demand. The group's memory business is one of the primary beneficiaries of the AI build-out, and its $1tn market-cap milestone earlier this year was driven largely by appetite for the high-bandwidth memory that trains and runs models like Mistral's. A stake in a frontier lab would give it a foothold on the software side of a market it already supplies at the hardware level. For Mistral, the pull of a strategic investor with a chip business of its own is not hard to read. Chief executive Arthur Mensch has spoken about designing custom silicon to loosen the company's dependence on Nvidia, and a memory giant is a useful name to have on the register while doing so. The startup has also been building out its own compute, raising an €830m debt facility earlier this year to fund data centres in Paris and Sweden, and counts Airbus and BMW among its enterprise customers. The wider backdrop is a European AI sector that keeps clearing valuation bars faster than it clears product ones. Mistral's models still trail those of OpenAI and Anthropic, both valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and the €20bn figure rests more on Europe's hunger for a home-grown champion than on any parity of performance. That hunger has hardened as US export controls and platform restrictions have made a domestic alternative look less like a luxury and more like insurance, and governments across the bloc have begun steering procurement toward homegrown suppliers. For now, the story is a report, not a deal. If Samsung does sign, it would be one of the more consequential names yet to join Mistral's cap table, and a sign that the chase for the company is no longer a mainly European affair. If it does not, the round is unlikely to want for interest at €20bn, given the queue of strategic and sovereign backers already forming. Either way, the terms on the table today may not be the terms that close.

Mistral in talks with Samsung on €20B valuation

Why it matters: Talks are happening in the midst of the earthquake caused by Moonshoot's release of Kimi K3. Between the lines: EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund is also in talks to join the round. Samsung could invest about €1 billion in the new round, per the FT. * Mistral was last valued at €11.7 billion. Zoom in: "Mistral's talks with Samsung come as the AI industry faces an unprecedented chip crunch, as suppliers of memory and other semiconductors needed to run and train AI systems rush to expand capacity." -- Ivan Levingston and Tim Bradshaw, Financial Times

Samsung in talks to back France's Mistral at €20bn valuation - FT

French AI start-up Mistral is seeking to raise several billion euros at a €20bn valuation, with Samsung among the investors in discussions to back the round, the Financial Times reported today. Samsung is in advanced talks to invest as much as €1bn in Paris-based AI start-up Mistral, in a new funding round that would lift the company's valuation to €20bn, according to the Financial Times. The South Korean conglomerate, which previously backed Mistral through its venture arm, is discussing the investment as part of a broader round expected to raise several billion euros in total, according to people familiar with the matter cited by the FT. Swedish investor EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund, backed by Brussels and managed by EQT, is also in talks to participate, alongside private investors including Novo Holdings and Santander. The talks reflect growing appetite for European AI alternatives following the Trump administration's decision to block foreign access to Anthropic's latest Mythos and Fable models, a move that has sparked fresh interest in what the industry calls "sovereign AI" capacity. Since its founding in 2023, Mistral has focused on open models that can be customised and deployed without dependence on US cloud providers, meaning no company or government can switch them off. The round represents a significant step up from Mistral's previous €12bn valuation, set less than a year ago in a deal led by Dutch chip equipment maker ASML. Mistral this week announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft, one of its earliest investors, which made a "multibillion-dollar commitment" to use Mistral's computing infrastructure, providing a stable revenue stream the company can borrow against as it continues to scale. In March, Mistral raised $830m in its first debt financing, supported by a consortium of seven global banks, to fund the construction of a data centre at Bruyeres-le-Chatel near Paris. The facility, equipped with 13,800 Nvidia GB300 GPUs and 44MW of powered capacity, is designed to train AI models and deliver inference services for Mistral and its enterprise customers. The company separately committed more than $1.4bn for digital infrastructure in Sweden, as part of a broader target of 200MW of capacity across Europe by 2027. "Scaling our infrastructure in Europe is critical to empower our customers and to ensure AI innovation and autonomy remain at the heart of Europe," chief executive Arthur Mensch said at the time. Founded in 2023, Mistral is Europe's most valuable AI start-up. Mensch told the FT in February that annual recurring revenues were on track to exceed $1bn by the end of this year. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Samsung in talks to invest in Mistral at $23 billion valuation

This comes after Microsoft agreed ⁠to spend billions of dollars on Mistral's computing infrastructure in Europe under a deal that will also expand distribution of the French AI startup's technology through the U.S. cloud and software giant, the companies said on Tuesday. South Korea's Samsung is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of euros in the AI start-up Mistral, as part of a fundraising round that could value the group at roughly €20 billion ($22.81 billion), Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources. Samsung could invest about €1 billion in ⁠the ⁠new round, the report said, adding that Swedish investor EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund is in talks to back the fundraising round. In April, Samsung said it would consider investment and acquisitions where necessary to accelerate development and commercialisation in robotics, while combining partnering local companies for technology development. Reuters could not immediately ⁠verify the report. Samsung and Mistral did not immediately respond to requests for comment. This comes after Microsoft agreed ⁠to spend billions of dollars on Mistral's computing infrastructure in Europe under a deal that will also expand distribution of the French AI startup's technology through the U.S. cloud and software giant, the companies said on Tuesday. There is a growing interest in Europe and elsewhere to reduce dependence on U.S. technology so other countries may have greater say in their future society and economy. Mistral supplies the French military and has positioned itself as a ⁠European alternative to U.S. technology giants at a time when governments in the region are pushing for greater technological independence. Its valuation remains dwarfed by U.S. peers such as Anthropic. Separately, a U.S. decision last month paused foreign access to two advanced models from San Francisco-based Anthropic has made technology independence a more urgent issue in Europe.

Samsung Weighs $1 Billion Investment in AI Firm Mistral | PYMNTS.com

The investment could help fuel Mistral's push to become a key alternative to AI companies in the United States, the report said. Samsung is discussing an investment in Mistral as part of a larger funding round that could value the firm at about 20 billion euros (about $23 billion), according to the report. Samsung has already invested in Mistral through its venture arm and could invest around 1 billion euros (about $1.1 billion) in the new round. Mistral wants to tap into increasing interest from European and Asian companies and governments in alternatives to the top U.S. AI models, the report said. The White House last month blocked foreign access to Anthropic's latest Mythos and Fable models, leading to an interest in "sovereign AI" capacity. On Tuesday (July 21), Mistral announced that it expanded its partnership with Microsoft to give organizations across Europe and other regulated markets access to frontier AI and the ability to keep control over their data, operations and critical workloads. Meanwhile, the PYMNTS Intelligence report "From First Prompt to Daily Habit: The Data Behind Rising Gen AI Reliance" found that consumers are using generative AI for personal tasks. The report revealed that 69% of people who use generative AI for learning and self-improvement said they use it more now than when they first began. Heavier use also extends to other task categories. The report showed that 66% of people use generative AI for writing and communication, and 63% use it for managing finances and banking, planning travel and activities, and managing health and wellness. Even for everyday planning, the lowest-cited category, 58% of consumers said they are using generative AI more now than when they began using it. The findings point to a "self-reinforcing cycle" in which models improve, and users figure out better follow-up questions, how to add context and establish constraints, according to the report. "Results improve, trust grows, and gen AI moves into more tasks and more consequential choices," the report said. "Put simply, trust builds because the tool keeps doing more and doing it better." For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.

Samsung in talks to invest up to €1 bln in Mistral, FT reports By Investing.com

Investing.com-- Samsung Electronics (KS:005930) is in talks to invest up to 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion) in French artificial intelligence startup Mistral as part of a fundraising round that could value the company at about 20 billion euros, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The South Korean technology giant, which has previously backed Mistral through its venture arm, is discussing an investment worth hundreds of millions of euros and could ultimately commit around 1 billion euros, the report said. Get real-time updates on market-moving news with InvestingPro According to the FT, Mistral is seeking to raise several billion euros as demand for AI infrastructure accelerates and developers race to secure partnerships with semiconductor suppliers amid a global shortage of computing capacity. The report said Swedish investor EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund is also in talks to participate in the fundraising, although discussions are ongoing and terms could still change. The fundraising comes as Mistral expands its AI infrastructure and positions itself as a European alternative to leading U.S. AI developers with its open AI models.