The leading lithography machine company may lead the investment in the "European OpenAI".
ASML will lead the latest Series C financing round of Mistral AI, committing to provide €1.3 billion. It is expected to become the largest shareholder and obtain a seat on the board of directors.
On September 7th local time, according to media reports citing people familiar with the matter, the lithography machine manufacturer ASML is about to become the largest shareholder of Mistral AI, Europe's largest AI unicorn company. People familiar with the matter said that ASML will lead the latest Series C financing round of Mistral AI, committing to provide €1.3 billion (the total amount of this financing round is €1.7 billion), and is expected to obtain a seat on the board of directors.
People familiar with the matter said that ASML's investment in Mistral will bring together two leading European technology companies, aiming to strengthen Europe's technological sovereignty.
Currently, ASML is the world's only company that produces extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. Data shows that ASML has not made large - scale investments in AI software companies before. Its past investments and acquisitions have been more focused on integrating key technologies in the semiconductor industry chain to consolidate its leading position in the lithography field. The companies it has acquired include semiconductor inspection equipment manufacturer Hermes Microvision, light source technology supplier Cymer, and optical system manufacturer Berliner Glas. The companies it has invested in also include German optical giant Zeiss from the hardware side.
What's the background of Mistral AI?
Mistral AI is a startup company focused on developing large - scale AI models. It was founded in 2023 by former researchers from DeepMind and Meta. It is regarded as a benchmark enterprise in European artificial intelligence and is known as the "European OpenAI". The company has launched an AI chatbot called "Le Chat" designed specifically for European users, competing with OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Different from OpenAI, which tends to use closed - source models, Mistral AI mainly promotes open - source models. Some of its open - source models can rival those of OpenAI. For example, Mistral Large performs closely to GPT - 4 in the MMLU benchmark test, can handle 32K Token context, supports function calls, has strong multilingual capabilities, and has an advantage in European localization adaptation; Codestral Mamba, based on the Mamba architecture, has fast inference speed, long context, and performs excellently in code generation. Its input length of 256K is better than GPT - 4's 128K.
Previously, Mistral AI has received support from well - known Silicon Valley technology companies and investors such as NVIDIA, a16z, and Microsoft. Its financing process has been extremely fast. From the seed round to the Series C round, within two years of its establishment, its valuation is expected to soar from $100 million to $10 billion -
Just one month after its establishment, relying on a 7 - page PPT and the technological endorsement of its three founders, Mistral AI received €105 million (approximately $113 million) led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, setting a record for the European seed round. After completing its Series B financing in 2024, Mistral AI's valuation exceeded $6 billion. The Series C financing is expected to take the company's valuation to a new level. Reuters reported that its pre - investment valuation is as high as €10 billion (approximately $11.7 billion), and Bloomberg reported last week that Mistral's latest financing may push its valuation as high as $14 billion.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily". The author is Song Ziqiao, and it is published by 36Kr with permission.