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See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

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Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#51

Post by rsynnott »

ToJans wrote: post #48
Clueed wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read it like this: They differentiate themselves from OpenAI/Anthropic/other major players by being in the EU and (more) open-source; they differentiate themselves from other European competitors by being as good as OpenAI. I think it's a fine proposition given the early market and their team, as long as this hypothesis holds true for years to come, > we believe that most of the value in the emerging generative…

Ok, so they're aiming for a more "spray & pray" kind of GTM, challenging the incumbents based on the premise that it'll be EU based. This basically then boils down to: "ChatGPT got x users in a week, and we want to do the same for EU.", without a clear path to profitability or guarantees. So it's effectively a humongously risky bet by EU VCs?

> without a clear path to profitability or guarantees.

I mean, ^ describes literally all "AI" VC activity, surely? It is, currently, all speculation.

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#52

Post by ReDeiPirati »

ToJans wrote: post #48
Clueed wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read it like this: They differentiate themselves from OpenAI/Anthropic/other major players by being in the EU and (more) open-source; they differentiate themselves from other European competitors by being as good as OpenAI. I think it's a fine proposition given the early market and their team, as long as this hypothesis holds true for years to come, > we believe that most of the value in the emerging generative…

Ok, so they're aiming for a more "spray & pray" kind of GTM, challenging the incumbents based on the premise that it'll be EU based. This basically then boils down to: "ChatGPT got x users in a week, and we want to do the same for EU.", without a clear path to profitability or guarantees. So it's effectively a humongously risky bet by EU VCs?

I think that the investors are mainly betting on the team expertise to train models as good as the one of OpenAI but with an open source approach (the main differentiator), which according to the founders would open up a bigger market opportunity for them.

> So it's effectively a humongously risky bet by EU VCs?

isn't it supposed to be VCs job to bet on risk proposition with the hope of a 100x return?

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#53

Post by ddorian43 »

meinheld111 wrote: post #45
ddorian43 wrote: post #5

Anyone reached out to them to see what wages they're offering? Edit: Trying to see how they will compete with US based on paying EU salaries in a world that is becoming increasingly more remote.

Idk but it seems generally not trivial to compare salaries because te hole shebang of social externalities and work environment. Afaik us salaries include neither retirement funds nor medical insurance, probably more missing.

> Idk but it seems generally not trivial to compare salaries because te hole shebang of social externalities and work environment.

Talking about gross amount as fully remote contract with no taxes paid by the company.

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#54

Post by sveme »

Archelaos wrote: post #30
whizzter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word comes from a strong wind in the Rhine valley and the south of France so I guess the usage hearkens back to that.

It has nothing to do with the Rhine valley. It is a strong seaward wind just in southern France.

Probably meant Rhône, not Rhine.

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#55

Post by user_named »

Shrezzing wrote: post #50
TrackerFF wrote: post #33

I don't know, the pitch seemed generic? Seems to me that it's the team + market that won the money.

> Seems to me that it's the team + market that won the money. That's pretty much it. Most analysts expect there's an addressable market of $20bn this year, growing to $100bn per year by the end of the decade. The market will be split between four or five companies. The number of people globally with the required expertise to create these models is in the tens (generously one hundred individuals). Three of those peopl…

I don't at all believe the people able to build models are that few. Aren't tons of people doing open source models already? I believe the number of people who have already built models to be low, but the number of people with the capability to build models to be very large. It's not magic.

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#56

Post by littlestymaar »

elzbardico wrote: post #36
littlestymaar wrote: post #9

From the founder's list: > Cédric O: Former French Secretary of State for Digital Affairs That explains a lot actually, France is the epitome of crony capitalism, and having a former minister (from the current ruling party) is going to help a lot here…

Yeah, because the Military-Industrial Complex in America is a purely competitive market, driven exclusively by the invisible hand. :-) I find it very funny when Americans say things like that (not that France is not like described) without even pausing to realize we are a country that legalized and institutionalized lobbying.

> I find it very funny when Americans say things like that

Salut, I'm definitely French ;)

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#57

Post by elzbardico »

littlestymaar wrote: post #56
elzbardico wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because the Military-Industrial Complex in America is a purely competitive market, driven exclusively by the invisible hand. :-) I find it very funny when Americans say things like that (not that France is not like described) without even pausing to realize we are a country that legalized and institutionalized lobbying.

> I find it very funny when Americans say things like that Salut, I'm definitely French ;)

Lol. Well, I am sad to say that America is not that much better than your country on this count.

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#58

Post by whiplash451 »

Clueed wrote: post #47
ToJans wrote: post #38

Reading through the memo, the GTM/use cases/market seem to be void of any kind of beachhead strategy? I see lots of technical stuff, but the complete business plan & roadmap seems to be lacking any kind of tangible use case that is showing me how they plan to differentiate? (The technical reasons they state seem to be fairy minimal, and I don't see anything that competitors couldn't do either.) The reason that I'm we…

I've read it like this: They differentiate themselves from OpenAI/Anthropic/other major players by being in the EU and (more) open-source; they differentiate themselves from other European competitors by being as good as OpenAI. I think it's a fine proposition given the early market and their team, as long as this hypothesis holds true for years to come, > we believe that most of the value in the emerging generative…

If you read the memo carefully, they do claim to be open-source at the beginning, but then switch to explaining that they will make money off closed-source models for their customers.

So, not more open-source than what OpenAI is doing.

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#59

Post by whiplash451 »

ToJans wrote: post #38

Reading through the memo, the GTM/use cases/market seem to be void of any kind of beachhead strategy? I see lots of technical stuff, but the complete business plan & roadmap seems to be lacking any kind of tangible use case that is showing me how they plan to differentiate? (The technical reasons they state seem to be fairy minimal, and I don't see anything that competitors couldn't do either.) The reason that I'm we…

It is definitely an EU FOMO play.

The catch, however, is that Germany and UK will also have their own Mistral.

Each will have direct and trivial access to their country's market, but much harder access to their neighbours' country.

From where I conclude that Mistral's TAM is mostly France, not EU.

Re: See the pitch memo that raised €105M for four-week-old startup Mistral

#60

Post by whiplash451 »

rsynnott wrote: post #46
cracrecry wrote: post #25

For me it is clear that they have given that much money expecting they can get back way more having access to EU bureaucracy. In the EU bureaucracy is huge and they spend billions on taxpayer money. It really doesn't matter if those billions are wasted away or not. I have a company and I have to talk with EU politicians, most of them are clueless regarding technology, but they spend billions anyway, so you need to ta…

> In the EU bureaucracy is huge and they spend billions on taxpayer money. This is a fairly popular belief, but the EU's bureaucracy is actually pretty small. The entire EU civil service is only 40,000 people, most of them part time. Ireland is an EU country with about 1% the population of the EU, and also has about 40,000 civil servants, and 300,000 people in the wider public service. 1% of the per-capita civil serv…

What we mean by "EU democracy" is all the medium to large-size companies that will suffer tremendous pressure from their respective governments to use an EU provider. Banks, industrial OEMs, etc. Lots of customers in perspective.
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