Samsung is in advanced talks to invest up to €1 billion in Mistral, the French AI company, as part of a new funding round that could value Mistral at around €20 billion. The Financial Times first reported the discussions on July 22. Swedish investment firm EQT is also said to be considering joining the round.
This is not a first meeting. Samsung's venture arm already invested in Mistral in 2024, and the company counts Microsoft and Nvidia among its existing backers. What is new is the scale: a €1 billion cheque from the Samsung parent would make it one of Mistral's largest single investors.
The valuation itself tells a story. In September 2025, ASML, the Dutch company that makes the machines used to produce advanced chips, led a €1.7 billion round that valued Mistral at €11.7 billion. Now, less than a year later, the target valuation is €20 billion. That is not unusual in AI funding right now, but it is worth being clear about what it reflects: investor confidence in Mistral's position, not just its current revenues.
On the revenue side, Mistral's growth has been rapid. Estimated annual recurring revenue was around $20 million in January 2025. By January 2026, that figure had grown to around $400 million. The CEO has publicly targeted more than $1 billion by year-end. At the same time, the company plans to spend roughly €1 billion on chips and computing infrastructure this year, which means revenue and costs are running in parallel.
The Microsoft deal announced on July 21 adds another layer. Microsoft committed billions of dollars to fund Mistral's data center expansion in Europe, and Mistral's AI models are now being integrated into Microsoft Foundry, Copilot Studio, and Azure. Crucially, these models can be deployed in fully disconnected environments, meaning organizations in finance, healthcare, or government can run Mistral's AI without any data leaving their own systems. Two thirds of Mistral's existing customers already work with Microsoft.
Samsung's interest here is not purely financial. The company is one of the world's largest makers of memory chips, the type of component that every AI system needs in large quantities. By holding equity in Mistral, Samsung secures a strategic relationship with a major AI model developer. Separately, Samsung is also in early talks with Anthropic about manufacturing a custom AI chip, putting Samsung at the intersection of AI software and AI hardware in a way few companies can claim.
For business operators outside the technology sector, the relevant question is not who wins the investment round. The relevant question is what Mistral's growing position means for the tools available to them. Mistral's models are increasingly distributed through platforms that businesses in Europe already pay for. The Microsoft partnership makes those models available in regulated environments where US-hosted cloud services have sometimes been a legal or compliance concern.
One honest note: these are reported talks, not a signed deal. The €20 billion figure is a target valuation in ongoing negotiations. That said, the direction is clear. Europe's most valuable AI company is pulling in capital from Asia, North America, and within Europe simultaneously, and is building computing infrastructure on the continent at a scale that did not exist two years ago.