By Gianluca Lo Nostro
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - French artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI has raised 1.7 billion euros ($2 billion) in its latest funding round, led by Dutch chip equipment maker ASML, the companies said on Tuesday.
The statement confirmed a Reuters report from Sunday.
ASML is investing 1.3 billion euros in Mistral AI as part of a series C funding round, making it Mistral's main shareholder with a stake of about 11%.
The latest funding round gives Mistral an 11.7 billion-euro valuation,
Mistral said in a statement, becoming the most valuable AI company in Europe.
The deal is a boost for Europe's AI ambitions, pairing the continent's most credible rival to U.S. giants OpenAI, Meta and Alphabet's Google with one of its largest tech companies.
Mistral, founded in 2023 by former researchers from Google DeepMind and Meta, has positioned itself as Europe's AI alternative to the U.S. and is a centerpiece of France's strategy to become a leading AI competitor.
Netherlands-based ASML has recently strengthened its French connections by appointing former French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire as an adviser to its executive board.
The company is also led by French CEO Christophe Fouquet, who took the helm in 2024.
"It helps that ASML is well connected to the industrial and political establishment to pick and choose its partners," said ING analyst Jan Frederik Slijkerman.
"There is an industrial rational to develop products together," he added. "For ASML it is probably easier to develop AI based products through a partnership then to do this in house."
Besides ASML, other investors who joined the fundraising are DST Global, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Lightspeed and Nvidia, Mistral said.
ASML will also partner with Mistral to integrate AI models across its semiconductor equipment portfolio and gain a seat on the French startup's strategic committee through finance chief Roger Dassen.
($1 = 0.8495 euros)
(Reporting by Nathan Vifflin and Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Tom Hogue, Jacqueline Wong and Matt Scuffham)
