French startup Mistral AI, a new force in the open-source AI field, recently announced plans to go public instead of being acquired.
Arthur Mensch, the CEO and co-founder of Mistral, stated in an interview with Bloomberg Television, "We are not for sale." There were previous rumors that Microsoft might acquire the company, partly because Microsoft invested €15 million (approximately $15.6 million) in Mistral and established a partnership with it. Mensch added that Mistral currently does not need funding, as the company has sufficient capital.
Mistral was founded in April 2023, and its founding team consists of former engineers from Google's DeepMind and Meta. Mensch noted that the company has been growing rapidly since its inception.
To further expand its market, Mistral plans to open offices in the Asia-Pacific region, with the first location in Singapore. Mistral offers open-source foundational models to help clients customize and deploy solutions within their organizations. Mensch believes that companies are "struggling a bit" to realize the value of AI, and he expects the widespread implementation of AI applications to take place over the next few decades.
