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A brand new artificial intelligence (AI) startup dedicated to ChatGPT’s rival creator, OpenAI, has raised $113 million in seed funding, bringing its valuation to $260 million within two months of inception.
Former AI researchers formerly of Google DeepMind and Meta co-founded Mistral AI in May 2023 to develop open source generative AI models. Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of the company, said the first round of funding “will provide us with the resources and network we need to start rolling out a new model of generative artificial intelligence.”
Prior to co-founding Mistral AI, Mensch was a Google Deep Mind Fellow. The other two co-founders, Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, have worked at Facebook AI as a research engineer and research fellow, respectively.
The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and included JCDecaux Holding, Rodolphe Saadé and Motier Ventures, among others. The trio will run the company from Paris and plan to release their first models for text-based generative AI in 2024.
The company is actively recruiting and looking for researchers, software engineers and AI product developers. At the time of writing, the newly formed Mistral AI has also not been featured on social media.
Related: UK to get ‘early or priority access’ to AI models from Google and OpenAI
Recently, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, met with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and called on the country to take the lead in the production of chips designed for AI technology.
Currently, OpenAI uses chips from Taiwan, but Altman said there will be a growing need for chips from Korea in the future.