Samsung in talks to invest in Mistral at roughly €20 billion valuation, FT says

Reuters reported that South Korea's Samsung is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of euros in AI startup Mistral, as part of a fundraising round that could value the group at roughly €20 billion ($22.81 billion), according to the Financial Times citing sources. The FT report said Samsung could invest about €1 billion in the new round, and that Swedish investor EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund is also in talks to back the fundraising. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report, and that Samsung and Mistral did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The wire noted that Microsoft on Tuesday agreed to spend billions of dollars on Mistral's computing infrastructure in Europe under a deal that will also expand distribution of the French startup's technology through the U.S. cloud and software giant. Mistral supplies the French military and has positioned itself as a European alternative to U.S. technology giants amid regional pushes for greater technological independence, Reuters reported. Its valuation remains dwarfed by U.S. peers such as Anthropic. Separately, a U.S. decision last month paused foreign access to two advanced models from San Francisco-based Anthropic, which Reuters said has made technology independence a more urgent issue in Europe. In April, Samsung said it would consider investment and acquisitions where necessary to accelerate development and commercialisation in robotics, while combining partnering local companies for technology development, Reuters reported.