Samsung weighs up to €1bn investment in Mistral Series D

Samsung is discussing an investment of up to €1bn in Mistral as part of the French AI company’s Series D fundraising, according to the Financial Times, which cited people familiar with the matter. The talks matter for the AI infrastructure market because Mistral is reportedly seeking €3bn at a €20bn valuation while Samsung is one of the world’s largest memory chip suppliers.

The Financial Times reported that negotiations are continuing and that the terms could change. Sifted also reported that a person with direct knowledge confirmed Samsung is in talks to back the round. Mistral declined to comment to Sifted, and Samsung did not immediately respond to its request for comment.

The round has not been announced, and no final investor list has been disclosed. According to Sifted, Mistral is raising a €3bn Series D at a €20bn valuation. That would be the company’s next equity financing less than a year after it raised a €1.7bn Series C led by ASML, the Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer.

Late-stage capital and chip access

Samsung’s role would be more than another name on a cap table. The South Korean conglomerate is a major producer of memory chips, components used in training AI models. Sifted reported that memory chip shortages have grown in recent months as AI infrastructure spending has put pressure on supply.

A Samsung investment would follow a similar pattern seen elsewhere in AI financing, where model companies seek closer ties to chipmakers and infrastructure suppliers. In June, Anthropic announced a strategic investment from Micron, the US memory manufacturer.

Sifted previously reported that EQT, the Swedish investment firm, is also in talks to lead or co-lead Mistral’s Series D through the Scaleup Europe Fund. The fund is a €5bn vehicle launched by the European Union last year to address Europe’s shortage of late-stage capital.

For Europe, the round would be one of the clearest tests of whether regional institutions and industrial investors can support a model company at the scale required to compete with US and Chinese players. Mistral was founded in 2023 and has positioned itself as a European alternative to US foundation model companies.

Mistral remains smaller than US rivals

Mistral has raised more than $3.5bn in debt and equity to date, according to Sifted. Even if the reported Series D closes at the stated size and valuation, the company would remain much smaller than the best-funded US AI labs.

Sifted reported that Anthropic recently secured $65bn in Series H funding at a $965bn post-money valuation. It also reported that OpenAI announced a $122bn raise at an $852bn post-money valuation a month earlier.

Those figures show the gap Mistral is trying to narrow. The reported Samsung talks also underline a more practical constraint in model development: capital alone is not the only bottleneck. Access to chips, memory and other infrastructure has become part of the financing story for AI labs competing at the top end of the market.

This story draws on original reporting from Sifted.