Microsoft-backed Mistral AI raises $645 million at a $6 billion valuation

Mistral AI, a French tech startup, raised a funding round of 600 million euros ($645 million), as huge amounts of money continues to pour into the artificial intelligence race.

The round, which was announced by the company on Tuesday, values Mistral AI at 5.8 billion euros, or about $6.2 billion, a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told CNBC.

Mistral AI did not give much detail about the round. But the Financial Times reported that venture capital firm General Catalyst led the round which also included existing investors.

The French startup is just over a year old but has raised huge sums of money and is vying to take on OpenAI and become Europe's AI champion. Mistral AI is building so-called large language models (LLMs), which underpin applications like chatbots popularized by ChatGPT.

Such endeavors are expensive and require huge investment in infrastructure, such as buying Nvidia's semiconductors.

Mistral's seed round, which refers to very early investment in a company, was 105 million euros alone when the company announced it last year.

Arthur Mensch, the co-founder and CEO of Mistral, has become somewhat of a rock star in the European technology scene, as startups in the continent look to take on U.S. giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

Yet these same giants are also looking to partner with these young companies. In February, Microsoft announced an investment in Mistral.

On social platform X, Mensch thanked the company's new and existing investors "for their continued confidence and support for our global expansion."

"This will accelerate our roadmap as we continue to bring frontier AI into everyone's hands," he added.