Exclusive: Mistral’s first investor on what their €3B raise really means

Mistral just raised €3 billion in a Series D, valuing it at more than €21 billion, the largest equity fundraising ever completed by a European technology company.With this, Mistral still intends to build frontier AI models, but will also invest heavily in compute, infrastructure and sovereign AI, positioning itself as an alternative for governments and companies that want more control over their technology and their data.So is Mistral still trying to become Europe’s OpenAI or Anthropic, taking a leaf out of the Chinese playbook, or is it building something potentially much more defensible in the long term?To unpack the round, the valuation, and what it means for the future, Paul Murphy, Mistral’s earliest investor at Lightspeed, spoke to Pathfounders Editor, Mike Butcher. P.S. Apply now to join the Pathfounders Network of vetted founders, investors and key players in Europe, plus first access to exclusive content. Launching soon!https://pathfounders.com/network