The three co-founders of Mistral AI have become the first French billionaires in the artificial intelligence industry after a funding round valued their technology firm at $13.7 billion.
The three co-founders of Mistral AI have become the first French billionaires in the artificial intelligence industry after a funding round valued their technology firm at $13.7 billion.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Arthur Mensch, 33, Timothy Lacroix, 34, and Guillaume Lampl, 34, are each worth $1.1 billion.
Recall that each of them owns at least 8% of the shares of the company Mistral, which they founded in Paris in 2023.
Mistral is currently completing a Series C round of €1.7 billion from Dutch chipmaker ASML Holding NV.
Existing investors include DST Global, Andreessen Horowitz and French state investor Bpifrance.
In an interview earlier this week, Arthur Mensch said that the company’s three co-founders and employees remain its majority shareholders.
With around 350 employees, Mistral is now headquartered in central Paris, with offices in the US, London, Luxembourg and Singapore. Their total lifetime contract value is €1.4 billion.
Recall that Mistral recently launched the first artificial intelligence model in Europe that uses logical thinking to generate an answer: this is how the French startup is trying to keep up with American and Chinese competitors.
Additionally, the French AI startup has released its own vibe coding tool, Mistral Code, to compete with established players like Windsurf, Cursor by Anysphere, and GitHub Copilot.
