Samsung in talks to back Mistral’s Series D, say reports

Samsung wants a piece of Europe's AI champion. The Financial Times reports the South Korean giant is discussing an investment of up to €1bn as part of Mistral's ongoing Series D, a round the Paris-based startup is trying to close at €3bn total and a €20bn valuation. Nothing is signed yet — terms can still move — but a source with direct knowledge told Sifted the talks are real.

This isn't just about cash. Samsung makes memory chips, the kind that feed hungry AI models, and the world is currently short of them. Training frontier models eats memory at a pace supply chains haven't caught up with, so a strategic backer that actually manufactures the stuff is worth more to Mistral than a generic check. Anthropic ran the same playbook in June, taking a strategic investment from Micron for exactly this reason.

Samsung wouldn't be alone in the round. EQT is reportedly negotiating to lead or co-lead through the EU's Scaleup Europe Fund, a €5bn vehicle Brussels set up last year specifically because European startups keep running out of runway right when they need late-stage money most. Mistral, born in 2023 as the continent's answer to OpenAI and Anthropic, has already pulled in more than $3.5bn across debt and equity, including a €1.7bn Series C led by ASML less than a year ago.

But scale the numbers side by side and the gap is stark. Anthropic just raised $65bn at a $965bn valuation. OpenAI landed $122bn at $852bn a month before that. Mistral's €20bn target, even if it lands, puts the company in a different weight class entirely — closer to a serious European contender than a rival to the American frontier labs. Samsung's money would help close that distance, but it wouldn't erase it.