Dutch chip equipment giant ASML has agreed to invest €1.3bn in French artificial intelligence start-up Mistral, forging an alliance between two of Europe’s leading technology companies at a time of heightened concern over reliance on US Big Tech groups. Mistral is raising a total of €1.7bn in its latest round of funding, the company said on Tuesday, valuing the two-year-old start-up at nearly €12bn, including the new funds raised. Christophe Fouquet, ASML chief executive, said the decision to invest such a large sum in Mistral, becoming its biggest shareholder, reflected a view that AI will be a “strategic technology” and a desire to demonstrate “long-term trust”. The deal brings together Europe’s top AI start-up and one of the continent’s most valuable public companies, which supplies the equipment to make the advanced chips that are used to train and run AI models. Arthur Mensch, Mistral’s chief executive, said that for both economic and strategic reasons, “it’s important for European companies not to have too much dependency on US technology”.

Full report : Mistral raised a €1.7 billion Series C at an €11.7 billion valuation; ASML led the round with €1.3 billion to become its biggest shareholder, joined by a16z, DST, Nvidia, and others.