French AI company Mistral raises €3 billion, valued at over €21 billion

French AI company Mistral announced that it has completed a €3 billion ($3.5 billion) funding round led by Samsung Electronics, valuing the company at over €21 billion. It says the deal is the largest funding round in European tech history. Mistral says the funding will accelerate research, products, and infrastructure, and support international expansion. Its pitch to customers is that enterprises can run models themselves using their own data and compliance environments. The company’s CFO said its capital needs are not as large as those of some competitors, and that it plans to expand beyond Europe into the Middle East, Asia, and North America.