AI startup Mistral becomes Europe's 2nd most valuable tech group

French AI startup Mistral has become Europe's second-highest-valued private tech company after raising €3 billion, the largest equity funding round by a private European technology firm. The three-year-old company nearly doubled its valuation to over €21 billion from €11.7 billion in September 2025. Mistral will invest the funds in frontier AI research to compete with rivals OpenAI and Anthropic.