Nvidia-backed French AI startup Mistral AI has secured a €17 billion ($13.8 billion) valuation following a Series C funding round, with Dutch semiconductor equipment giant ASML emerging as the lead investor and gaining an 11% stake in the company.

ASML invested €1.3 billion of the €1.7 billion round, making it Mistral's largest shareholder. Other participants included existing investors Nvidia, DST Global, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, and Lightspeed. The new valuation more than doubles Mistral's €5.8 billion valuation from last year.

Founded in 2023, Mistral AI has quickly positioned itself as one of Europe's most promising AI companies, developing large language models for applications such as chatbots. Its co-founders include CEO Arthur Mensch, a former Google DeepMind researcher and contributor to the Flamingo and Chinchilla models, and Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, who previously worked at Meta's Paris AI lab and contributed to Llama and Llama 2.

ASML, the world's leading manufacturer of photolithography equipment, including EUV machines used by Samsung, Intel, and Apple, described the investment as a "first-of-its-kind partnership." ASML CFO Roger Dassen will join Mistral's strategic committee board, and the two companies plan to collaborate on joint research and leveraging AI to enhance semiconductor production and internal processes.

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch stated that the partnership "combines our frontier AI expertise with ASML's unmatched industrial leadership and most sophisticated engineering capabilities." The move is also viewed as a strategic step toward reducing Europe's reliance on American and Chinese AI technology, aligning with broader European ambitions for technological sovereignty.

The new funding round underlines the growing link between AI developers and semiconductor manufacturers, as advanced AI applications increasingly require massive computing power supported by cutting-edge chips. With this investment, Mistral gains both capital and strategic support to accelerate the development of its large language models while expanding its independence from Silicon Valley.