April 16 (Reuters) - French tech startup Mistral AI has

been speaking to investors about raising several hundred million

dollars at a valuation of $5 billion, The Information reported

on Tuesday.

It's unclear which investors Mistral has spoken to about a

new funding round, the report said, citing a person with direct

knowledge of the matter.

Mistral's existing investors include Andreessen Horowitz,

Lightspeed Ventures and Microsoft Corp ( MSFT ), which has also

backed AI startup OpenAI.

Mistral did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for

comment outside of regular business hours.

In February, Microsoft ( MSFT ) invested $16 million in Mistral and

partnered with them to make its artificial intelligence models

available through its Azure cloud computing platform.

The partnership provoked scrutiny from the European Union,

with lawmakers demanding an investigation into what they see as

a concentration of power by the technology giant.

The startup, which has just recently begun to generate

revenue, in December raised $415 million, the report added.

Mistral was last valued at 2 billion euros in a funding round in

December.