Who's who · Frontier labs
Mistral AI
Paris-based maker of open-weight and business AI models, with its own AI cloud.
At a glance
- Founded
- April 2023
- Based in
- Paris, France
- People
- Arthur Mensch, Chief executive and co-founder; Guillaume Lample, Chief science officer and co-founder; Timothée Lacroix, Chief technology officer and co-founder
- Known for
- Mistral 3, Vibe, Forge, Mistral AI Cloud
- Licence
- Apache 2.0 for most open-weight models; some models are commercial
- Funding
- Private; valued at more than €21bn (September 2026)
- Website
- https://mistral.ai
Mistral AI is a French company that builds large language models and sells AI systems to businesses and governments. It was founded in April 2023 by Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix.
Mistral is known for releasing capable open-weight models, many under the permissive Apache 2.0 licence, including the Mistral 3 family in December 2025. Its stated focus is sovereign AI: models and infrastructure that customers can control themselves. Its products include Vibe, an agent for long-running work, Vibe for Code for software teams, Studio for building AI agents and apps, Forge for training and customising models, and its own AI Cloud for training and running models. Recent models include Mistral Medium 3.5, Mistral Small 4 and Mistral OCR 4.
In September 2026 Mistral raised €3 billion in a Series D round led by Samsung Electronics, at a valuation of more than €21 billion, the largest equity round yet for a European technology company. It also opened a hub in Munich that month.
Sources
- Mistral AI, About Mistral, 2026-10-02
- TechCrunch, Mistral raises €3B as sovereign AI becomes big business, 2026-09-08
Facts last checked 2026-10-02