Three post-1990s entrepreneurs, with a valuation of 70 billion.

The AI myth continues.

News has come that Mistral AI is currently conducting a new round of financing, with an amount of approximately $1 billion, and its valuation is expected to reach $10 billion (equivalent to about 70 billion RMB). In just two years since its establishment, its valuation has nearly multiplied by 50 times, which is astonishing.

Behind it are three post - 90s academic elites. They graduated from top universities in Paris one after another and joined major AI companies. After sensing the opportunities of the era, they quit their high - paying jobs and started their own business. Just one month after the company was founded, they raised $100 million with just a 7 - page PPT, breaking the European seed - round financing record.

What's worth pondering is that at the beginning of this year, DeepSeek became a global sensation, which is exactly what Mistral has been dreaming of. Quietly, this new round of AI battle led by post - 90s entrepreneurs has just begun.

Three post - 90s entrepreneurs join hands to found the European version of DeepSeek

The story of Mistral AI begins with three young men.

In 1992, Arthur Mensch was born in the western suburbs of Paris. He is a real academic elite. He successively entered top universities such as the École Polytechnique, Université Paris - Saclay, and École Normale Supérieure. He obtained a doctorate in machine learning at the age of 26 and later engaged in post - doctoral research in mathematics.

After graduation, he crossed the ocean to work in Silicon Valley and joined Google DeepMind as a research scientist, responsible for optimizing large language models. During this period, Mensch reunited with his alumni Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix, who had been working in Meta's artificial intelligence laboratory for many years and were the core founders of the Llama architecture.

In 2023, Mensch realized that AI was triggering a global revolution, and France should not be absent. So, the three young men bid farewell to Silicon Valley and returned to Paris to found Mistral AI, which means "a strong wind blowing from France".

They took immediate action. In September of that year, Mistral released its first open - source large model, Mistral 7B. With a relatively small parameter scale of only 7.3 billion, it outperformed Llama2 in multiple benchmark tests and quickly caught the attention of developers, becoming an instant hit.

Different from the closed - source OpenAI and Anthropic, Mistral believes that leading the generative AI wave must be based on open - source technology, which can bring value and freedom to the world. The founder said confidently, "Our goal is to be in the leading position in the next 10 years."

Soon, Mistral became the pride of Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron personally showed his support for it on many occasions and praised it highly, calling it "a model for a new generation of European startups to compete with American tech giants."

However, the changes in the AI era are even faster than the wind. At the beginning of this year, DeepSeek, which also features open - source, low - cost, and high - performance, became a global phenomenon, which is exactly what Mistral has been longing for.

What's more interesting is that the founder of Mistral called DeepSeek "the Chinese version of Mistral" and said that he was very familiar with DeepSeek, and its popularity was within his expectation. "This is a crucial moment for open - source models, providing new ideas for the global AI industry."

Actually, the competition in the AI open - source battlefield is becoming increasingly fierce. Just this week, OpenAI released its latest open - source model for the first time in six years. Even earlier, leading companies such as Tencent, Zhipu AI, Alibaba, and Darkside of the Moon have intensively launched a new generation of open - source large models.

A sense of crisis is approaching. This year, Mistral has successively launched products such as the chatbot Le Chat and the first inference model Magistral, trying to directly challenge DeepSeek.

However, although Le Chat under Mistral once topped the list of the most - downloaded iOS apps in France, its performance in the international market is mediocre. Magistral has been questioned for avoiding direct comparisons with the latest versions of Tongyi Qianwen and DeepSeek in the test results.

Now, Mistral is still making all - out efforts to catch up and is also focusing on commercialization. It has officially announced cooperation with giants such as Nvidia. According to the Financial Times, Mistral's annual revenue is expected to exceed $100 million for the first time, and it has increased several times in the past year.

"We were ambitious from the beginning, and now we need to keep this ambition," said the founders who are just in their early 30s. For them, everything is just the beginning.

Valued at $7 billion, with a large number of VC/PE investors behind

So far, a long list of investors has gathered behind Mistral.

Looking back, when the company was still in its early stage, venture capital institutions flocked to it. Just one month after its establishment, Mistral announced the completion of a $113 million financing round, with a valuation exceeding $260 million, setting a record for the largest seed - round financing in Europe.

The list of investors at that time was quite impressive. Led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, institutions such as Redpoint, Index Ventures, JCDecaux Group, Motier Ventures, La Famiglia, Headline, Exor Ventures, First Minute, and LocalGlobe, as well as French legendary billionaires Xavier Niel and Rodolphe Saadé, participated in the investment.

It should be noted that at that time, the company didn't even have a product prototype, only a 7 - page PPT and three founders.

"There are only about 80 to 100 talents in the world with their level of experience," said a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. In addition to the shortage of computing power, AI companies are more in need of top - notch talents.

By the end of 2023, Mistral announced the completion of a $415 million Series A financing round, led by a16z, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Salesforce, BNP Paribas, CMA CGM, General Catalyst, Conviction led by Chinese - American female investor Sarah Guo, and Elad Gil.

In less than six months, the company's valuation multiplied by 7 times to reach $2 billion, officially entering the unicorn club.

Microsoft and Nvidia also joined the game. In February 2024, Microsoft announced a partnership with Mistral and invested $16.3 million in it. Then in June of the same year, Mistral completed a Series B financing round of approximately $640 million, and its valuation soared to $6 billion.

At that time, there were more than a dozen investors. Led by General Catalyst, many institutions such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, a16z, Nvidia, Samsung, Salesforce, Belfius, Bertelsmann, BNP Paribas, Bpifrance, Cisco, Eurazeo, and Headline participated in the investment.

The latest development is that this month, Mistral is in talks with institutions such as the Middle Eastern fund MGX for a $1 - billion financing round. If successful, the company's valuation will reach approximately $10 billion.

The investor MGX is quite influential. It was jointly established in 2024 by Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and G42, focusing on investments in the field of artificial intelligence. In just one year, it has participated in the investment of heavy - weight companies such as OpenAI, xAI, and Anthropic and has also been involved in OpenAI's Stargate project.

There were signs of this earlier. In May this year, Mistral, MGX, the French National Investment Bank Bpifrance, and Nvidia announced the establishment of a joint venture to build the largest artificial intelligence park in Europe.

"AI is like electricity that emerged 100 years ago, which will have at least a double - digit impact on each country's GDP in the future," Mensch said. He hopes that AI can be as accessible, convenient, and efficient as water and electricity for everyone and can improve people's lives. This is also the original intention of founding the company. Undoubtedly, Mistral still has a long way to go.

The AI wealth - creation wave: post - 90s entrepreneurs make their collective debut

Unconsciously, the AI track is already crowded with young faces.

Just last month, the AI search company Perplexity completed a $100 - million financing round, and its latest valuation reached $18 billion, nearly 20 times its valuation of $1 billion in April last year.

Founded in August 2022, Perplexity was created by three post - 90s geniuses. They are determined to surpass Google. In the first month after its product was launched, it attracted more than one million visitors. There are already more than 50 investors behind it, and the financing has been extremely active.

Similarly, Genesis AI announced the completion of a $105 - million seed - round financing (equivalent to about 750 million RMB) in July this year, setting a record for the largest seed - round financing in the embodied intelligence industry in Silicon Valley. The founder of the company is Zhou Xian, a post - 90s who just graduated with a doctorate. He joined hands with a group of young scholars and entered this hottest track.

Another impressive case is Anysphere. In May this year, the company announced the completion of a $9 - billion financing round (equivalent to about 6.5 billion RMB), and its valuation reached $9 billion (equivalent to about 65 billion RMB). Less than half a year has passed since its previous Series B financing at a valuation of $2.6 billion.

Behind it are four young faces from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recognizing the potential of AI programming, Michael Truell and three of his classmates founded Anysphere. Its programming tool Cursor has been well - received by programmers and quickly became popular. At that time, they were just 25 years old.

Let's shift our perspective to the other side of the ocean. A large number of post - 90s founders in China have also stepped onto the center stage. Wang Xingxing of Unitree Robotics, Yang Zhilin of Darkside of the Moon, Peng Zhihui (the so - called "genius teenager" Zhihui Peng), Zhang Yueguang of Muyan Intelligence, Zeng Guoyang of Mianbi Intelligence, Hu Yuanming of Meshy... The list goes on.

Most of them have a background in science and engineering from top universities in China and even the world. Different from the older - generation entrepreneurs, they have incorporated global perspectives, technological beliefs, and product - oriented values into the corporate genes. Standing on the shoulders of their predecessors, the young people are breaking through to a higher level and becoming the darlings of the era with the help of the artificial intelligence wave.

"This generation of young people has been exposed to the most cutting - edge global technology since childhood," said Wang Xingxing. Growing up in the Internet era, the post - 90s have a higher starting point, a broader vision, and more opportunities in the AI era.

Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence is a young person's cause and belongs to the young generation. The rapid rise of these post - 90s entrepreneurs is a vivid illustration of Warren Buffett's words: "Opportunities are rare. When the pie falls from the sky, you should use a bucket to catch it."

This article is from the WeChat official account "Touzijie" (ID: pedaily2012). The authors are Yu Mengying and Wang Lu. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.