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Yesterday , Mistral AI , a Paris - base AI startup work on foundational models , announced a unexampled gravid language model thatcould rival OpenAI ’s GPT-4 , a confab assistant and a dispersion partnership with Microsoft . But Microsoft and Mistral AI sink the news — or at least an important part .
As part of the partnership , Microsoft is invest € 15 million ( $ 16.3 million at today ’s interchange rate ) in the French startup . Mistral AI says that this an addition to the Series A financial support round that was announced a span of months ago — it could be considered as a Series A extension . It means that the valuation of Mistral AI is n’t change following this investment funds .
Mistral AI reach a evaluation of about $ 2 billion following its most recent financing beat in December 2023 . At the meter , the companyraised € 385 million(around $ 415 million ) , with Andreessen Horowitz ( a16z ) lead the Series A investment cycle . The company had previously raiseda $ 113 million semen roundjust a few hebdomad after its inception .
Microsoft say that this investiture will officially change over into fairness in Mistral ’s next funding around . However , as Microsoft ’s investment is based on the Series A evaluation , it mean that Microsoft will own less than 1 % in fairness in the French AI company .
Mistral AI releases new example to equal GPT-4 and its own chat assistant
Yesterday , Mistral AIunveiled Mistral Large , its flagship large language manakin that has been project to match other top - grade models , such as GPT-4 and Claude 2 . Unlike late Mistral AI release , Mistral Large is n’t open source . Developers can enter the manakin through Mistral ’s own API program .
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Mistral AI and Microsoft also signed a statistical distribution partnership deal for Azure . As a answer , Mistral AI will in all probability pull in more customers with this new distribution channel .
It also means that Azure customers can access Mistral ’s models through Azure ’s example catalogue . Customers who want to remain in the Microsoft ecosystem have another choice in addition to OpenAI ’s models . Meta ’s Llama example are also usable on Azure .
With this investment , Microsoft is now an investor in OpenAI ’s cap profit subsidiary company and Mistral AI . Microsoft ’s human relationship with OpenAI is under scrutiny fromEUandU.K.regulators .
This young investment has attracted the attention of the European Commission . A representative told TechCrunch that the EC will analyze the investment deal between Microsoft and Mistral AI as part of its ongoing scrutiny procedure between large technical school caller and generative AI company .
That ’s why Microsoft did n’t make a braggy wad about it . As for Mistral AI , the so - shout European AI champion looks more and more like its American competitors with a closed generator glide slope and a long list of American angel .
This article has been updated to admit a statement from the European Commission .
Correction : Microsoft ’s investment is n’t a convertible note . It is part of the Series A round , but it will be converted into equity at a later appointment .
