The European AI Company Trying Take On Open AI And ChatGPT

Another day, another example of the next big thing — that is, a startup the venture capitalists are ALL freaking OVER — that’s not available for investment by everyday, average investors like you and The Juice.

For the last several weeks, we have been super optimistic about the playing field getting more level, thanks to retail investors having access to a whole host of alternative investments. We can now execute strategies once only available to the big money through any number of platforms. We also have unprecedented access to private companies — startups — at various levels. 

For example, through the Fundrise platform, you can buy a fund that includes several cutting edge AI and data companies, namely Canva, a profitable late-stage, venture-backed firm. Via platforms such as StartEngine, you can access private investment opportunities that run the gamut. (See the Freshly Squeezed section for more on this). 

Amazing. And we’ll get back to the upside of the emergence of alts later this week, next week and into 2025 as we give you ideas, tools and strategies to craft killer portfolios that merge traditional and alternative investments. 

But, today, we have to continue the theme we started yesterday when we discussed Swedish Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) provider, Klarna, which has filed to go public in the US. See the Freshly Squeezed section for the link to The Juice on Klarna.

In it, we showed what often happens to IPOs. We traced Affirm (AFRM), another BNPL company, and its IPO from a huge pop post-IPO to a massive crash where lots of retail investors probably lost their shirts to an only halfway recovery current in progress.

Meanwhile, the venture capitalists and investment banks that invested in Affirm pre-IPO — and are investing in Klarna — didn’t have to deal with any of that (pardon our Swedish) post-IPO bull shit. 

The same will likely apply to Paris-based Mistral AI. Former employees of Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet (GOOG) founded Mistral AI to take on OpenAI, particularly its ChatGPT. 

Mistral is valued at — pardon us for saying freaking (and pardon!) again — freaking $5.8 billion. It’s Europe’s largest AI company. It’s getting money from the usual suspects in the US, including Andreessen Horowitz. Mistral will hit €30 million in revenue this year. And it’s going to be — freaking — huge. 

And chances are you’re not going to be able to participate in any of the investment rounds leading up to what will undoubtedly be an IPO or buyout within the next couple to few years. 

Basically, the only thing you and I can do is wait for Mistral to go public. And, as noted in reference to Affirm and maybe Klarna, this is an iffy — at best — strategy. 

Here’s what we need. And, frankly, what we — as investors — should be demanding. 

A further loosening of the rules to allow all of us, no matter how much wealth we have, to invest in anything. Currently, too many investments require you to be an accredited investor, as we have discussed these last few months. Big-name startups aren’t even available to the wealthy. They are only open to the ultra-wealthy. The biggest of the big money. 

From there, we need to create laws that say if a company accepts venture funding from big banks and huge venture capitalists, it has to open avenues for everyday investors. No more waiting for IPOs. 

This would be a win for Trump and Elon Musk as they examine government red tape. Do something that meaningfully brings the small investor a little more in line with Wall Street and Silicon Valley. 

It only sounds crazy — (maybe) — because it’s just not how things are currently done. But it wasn’t too long ago that cryptocurrency (a) didn’t exist and (b) people thought Bitcoin, which recently flirted with $100,000, was a fraud. It wasn’t long ago that old, since-loosened regulations didn’t even let (now) commonplace private investing platforms such as StartEngine exist. 

We can do more. And we need to do more to ensure that we can all profit from the public companies of tomorrow when they are private companies of today. 

The Bottom Line: The Juice doesn’t think this is crazy. In fact, we think if politicians in Washington actually gave a damn about the little guy that they would be crafting legislation to highlight how unfair it is that the big money can profit pre-IPO or pre-buyout and the rest of us can only hope for risky scraps. 

Give all startups not only the opportunity, but the mandate to take money from individual investors if they choose to take it from the big firms. Because it’s these big firms that are the ones we’re talking about when we say the rich keep getting richer.

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• The Profitable Swedish Buy Now, Pay Later Company About To IPO