PARIS, Jan. 20 -- Founded less than two years ago, French generative artificial intelligence (AI) startup Mistral AI has swiftly staked out a place as the great European hope contending with US giants dominating the sector.

Named for a legendary chill wind that sweeps France's Mediterranean coast, Mistral raked in a €600-million (RM2.7 billion) funding round last summer that was the largest of any French tech firm in 2024, according to consultancy KPMG.

The new investments brought the company's valuation to almost €6 billion.

Mistral was set up in April 2023 by Arthur Mensch, a graduate of France's prestigious Polytechnique engineering school with a mop of unruly dark hair who had previously worked at Google's DeepMind AI l...