Mistral AI, a company established just a month ago and hailed as a potential rival to OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, has just raised $113 million in seed funding. The latest financing round has boosted the startup's valuation to $260 million. The project is led by former Meta and Google DeepMind employees specializing in artificial intelligence (AI ) research.

ChatGPT Competitor with Roots in Facebook and Google

The goal of creating Mistral AI was to develop open-source generative AI models. Arthur Mensh, one of the project's co-creators and its current CEO, previously worked as a research scientist for Google. The other two founders, Timothee Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, developed AI solutions for Meta and Facebook.

According to Mensh, the latest round of funding will provide the resources and opportunities necessary to showcase a new generative AI model to the world. The product is intended to combine scientific quality with an open-source approach, delivering socially responsible technology to the end user.

"We are proud to initiate this global project from France, our home country, and to contribute, at our level, to the emergence of a credible new player in generative artificial intelligence from Europe," Mensch commented on his LinkedIn profile. "Over the coming months, we will be focusing all our energy and passion on honoring the trust placed in us by our investors."

Lightspeed Venture Partners led the funding round in collaboration with companies, such as Motier Ventures and JCDecaux. The trio of founders is currently assembling a team and plans to showcase the first models of Mistral AI next year.

"We believe that Europe has a decisive role to play in the AI field," Antoine Moyroud, a Partner at Lightspeed, commented in a Medium post.

AI to Transform the FX/CFD Industry

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was established in 2015, but only in recent quarters has it hit the headlines. The universally accessible language model showed how artificial intelligence could change daily work, improve information searches and affect numerous sectors of the economy. As it turns out, it also affects the investment industry, including FX and CFDs.

The first examples of this are already present. At the end of May, MetaQuotes, a provider of the popular MetaTrader trading platforms, introduced an AI coding assistant. A month earlier, Tiger Brokers, the trading brand of a leading online brokerage firm focusing on Chinese investors UP Fintech Holding Limited, presented an alternative to the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT, dubbed TigerGPT.

On top of that, artificial intelligence is emerging in the cryptocurrency market. Bitget, a crypto derivative and copy trading provider, has joined forces with Fetch.ai, an artificial intelligence blockchain platform. Bitget has committed $10 million to support the growth of the Fetch.ai ecosystem.

Interest in AI has led investors to increasingly bet on the shares of companies that can benefit the most from the latest technology boom. Following the release of ChatGPT in late November 2022, eToro, a social trading and investment platform, experienced a surge in AI stock trading activity among traders, especially those aged 55 and over. The growing interest in AI is perfectly illustrated by the condition of Nvidia Corporation on Wall Street. Since the beginning of the year, its shares have recorded an impressive increase of 180%. According to many, it is one of the contenders to become a leader in the transformation of technology towards artificial intelligence.