ASML becomes top investor in French AI maker Mistral

PARIS

France's AI developer Mistral has been valued at 11.7 billion euros following its latest fundraising round, which saw Dutch tech giant ASML become the top shareholder, the firm said in a statement Tuesday.

Mistral raked in 1.7 billion euros ($2 billion) in the fundraise, which linked Europe's top AI maker with ASML, a key producer of the machines that churn out the chips powering artificial intelligence models.

The French company has been touted as a European AI champion as technological sovereignty concerns fester between the European Union and the United States under the second administration of President Donald Trump.

The fundraise announced Tuesday is both a record for a French startup and almost doubles Mistral's valuation from six billion euros in mid-2024.

But it remains a relative minnow compared with American giants like Anthropic, which raised cash at a $183 billion valuation this month.

ASML's investment "aims to generate clear benefits for ASML customers through innovative products and solutions enabled by AI," the Dutch firm said in the statement, trailing "potential for joint research" in the future.

ASML's stake in Mistral would amount to 15 percent, French daily Le Figaro reported, while multiple media reported that the Dutch company would secure a seat on the French company's board, although neither company confirmed these details.

The company's key products include Le Chat, a large language model (LLM) chatbot competing with the likes of ChatGPT from the sector's American heavyweight OpenAI.

As well as text, Mistral offers generative AI models capable of turning out images and computer code.