Mistral AI, Nexus, Light, and CampusAI

Welcome to another edition of the Who Got Funded newsletter. 🚀 

My name is Onofre, and I'm an entrepreneur living in Aarhus, Denmark. Each week, I dedicate 3 to 4 hours of my free time to reading startup news, which I then summarize in this newsletter.

I hope you enjoy this content. Thank you so much for reading.

Estimated reading time: ⌛️ 4 min 50 sec.

SERIES B AND LATER
Paris-based AI startup Mistral closes €600 million in funding at a €5.8 billion valuation

🇫🇷 French AI startup Mistral raised €600 million to become the “European” alternative to leading American Large Language Models like GPT-4, Claude 3, and Meta’s Llama 3.

This is absolutely impressive! Especially if you remember that this startup was founded in April 2023, just 14 months ago.

Mistral AI was co-founded by alumni from Meta and Google’s DeepMind, so they had experience in the industry before getting started.

By the way, I wrote “European” in brackets in the first paragraph because the vast majority of its investors are... yes, Americans.

You can read more about this deal here.

More Series B (and later) interesting stories:

🇩🇪 Aachen-based Black Semiconductor secures €254.4 million to drive a new generation of chips in Europe.

🇮🇪 Dublin-based AccountsIQ secures €60 million Series C to embed AI into its cloud-based accounting platform.

🇩🇪 Düsseldorf-based Cognigy bags €93 million Series C to accelerate AI automation around the world.

SERIES A
Nexus closes €23.3 million Series A to enable verifiable computation via zero-knowledge cryptography

🇺🇸 San Francisco-based Nexus, a zero-knowledge cryptography company, announced that it secured €23.3 million in Series A financing.

This company is working in an industry that I am personally familiar with, so let me begin by explaining what zero-knowledge is.

Zero-knowledge proofs allow us to prove knowledge or possession of something without revealing specific or complete information.

For instance, imagine being able to prove that you're old enough to buy alcohol (just as an example) without disclosing your exact date of birth.

This is made possible with zero-knowledge proofs, which are interesting because they enhance user privacy while maintaining utility.

You can read more about this deal here.

More Series A interesting stories:

🇺🇸 Alexandria-based startup HyperSpectral raises €7.9 million in Series A to identify health threats like pathogens and contaminants.

SEED
Copenhagen-based Light snaps €12.1 million to scale AI-powered ledgers for global company’s finances

🇩🇰 Last week, Danish startup Light came out of stealth with a €12.1 million round to scale the first AI-powered general ledger for automating global company finances.

To me, this startup seems interesting because they are targeting a market created in the 1980s, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market, which, if you think about it, probably hasn’t changed that much. It basically consists of spreadsheets everywhere.

This company is proposing a radical new approach for enterprises to manage accounting, tax, payments, and reporting across multiple countries and currencies.

The ERP market is currently valued at $81.5 billion and is projected to grow to $240 billion by 2032.

You can read more about this deal here.

More Seed interesting stories:

🇬🇧 London-based Sidekick secures €10 million to make private wealth less private.

🇩🇪 Munich-based ARX Robotics gets €9 million to make European armed forces future-proof for robotic warfare.

🇫🇷 Paris-based Zeliq secures €9.2 million to boost sales with AI-powered data and outreach automation.

🇬🇧 London-based Visibly raises €7 million to rethink regulated training for the infrastructure sector.

🇩🇪 Berlin-based Cardino gets €4 million seed to accelerate its used EV sales model.

🇨🇭 Zurich-based Rivia raises €3 million to address the critical inefficiencies in the current clinical trial process.

🇪🇸 Barcelona-based Danelfin snaps €2 million to help retail investors make better decisions.

🇸🇮 Slovenian startup SaleSqueze raises €1.4 million to automate sales of complex manufacturing products.

PRE-SEED
CampusAI raises €9.2 million to create a global network of interactive platforms teaching collaboration with AI

🇵🇱 Warsaw-based CampusAI raised €9.2 million in pre-seed funding, setting a record for a Polish startup, to develop its online training ecosystem powered by AI.

Founded in early 2023, this startup has developed a platform that immerses and trains people in using AI, offering personalized learning paths, selecting appropriate tools, and enhancing prompt writing skills.

According to the press release, they state that corporate clients can use the CampusAI platform to build comprehensive e-learning suites that support digital transformation. So, my guess is that they have already landed big customers. Impressive!

You can read more about this deal here.

More pre-Seed interesting stories:

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based Haaven raises €1.1 million pre-seed to reinvent the way we build homes.