'OpenAI Challenger' Startup Value Soars... "Raking in Money"

AI startups regarded as rivals to OpenAI are raising massive funds in the market thanks to their increased corporate valuations.

On the 9th (local time), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that French AI startup MistralAI, invested in by Microsoft (MS), is raising $600 million (about 820 billion KRW) in funding. This comes just six months after raising about 700 billion KRW at the end of last year. WSJ stated, "MistralAI is currently valued at $6 billion (about 8.2 trillion KRW) in this funding round. Its value has tripled in less than six months," adding, "this has provided the driving force to compete with Silicon Valley giants."

MistralAI, founded in April last year by former researchers from Google and Meta Platforms, is being called the 'OpenAI of Europe.' In February, it launched its own generative AI called 'Le Chat,' similar to ChatGPT, and secured investment through a partnership with MS, which invested $13 billion in OpenAI. MistralAI's AI models are deployed not only on MS's cloud service Azure but also on Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Unlike Meta and OpenAI, which deploy hundreds of people to develop AI models, MistralAI has achieved these results with only about 60 employees. WSJ explained, "Although MistralAI is smaller than its competitors, investors were impressed by the company's efficiency and ability to build competitive technology."

Arthur Mensch, the 31-year-old CEO of MistralAI, aims to develop and commercialize low-cost AI tools for enterprises that can perform similarly to ChatGPT, and to surpass Silicon Valley leaders like OpenAI and Google in the AI race, WSJ reported.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is expected to complete a large fundraising round for his AI startup xAI as early as this week. According to Bloomberg, xAI's fundraising amount is $6 billion (about 8.2 trillion KRW), with a corporate valuation of $18 billion (about 24.6 trillion KRW). xAI is an AI startup founded by Musk in July last year as a rival to OpenAI. In December last year, it launched a generative AI called 'Grok,' similar to ChatGPT.