6 ms·

ASML gross revenue was 28B€ in 2024, and their net income was 7.5B€. While 1.3B€ (the amount ASML invested in this 1.7B€ fund raise) is not pocket change, it is

by maeln 1y ago

ASML gross revenue was 28B€ in 2024, and their net income was 7.5B€. While 1.3B€ (the amount ASML invested in this 1.7B€ fund raise) is not pocket change, it is also an amount that ASML can not afford to lose. While they might have seen some synergy with Mistral, it might also be a complete strategic and/or political investment. Mistral is the only serious "AI" company in the EU right now (if you exclude company working on the hardware side). It will very likely get a lot of support from the EU to be able to stay in the race with the U.S and China, and in a case of a IA market crash, the EU would also probably like for Mistral to have enough finance to be able to be one of the company that will survive. By funding Mistral, ASML might be able to buy a lot of political favor, while having stakes in a company that is unlikely to completely fail in the near future due to the EU administration support.

tedggh 1y ago
[flagged]
- benjiro 1y ago
  Its not a "Europe" issue alone but even more locally. Saying this as a IT guy, we had way too many talks with banks about IT projects that in the US will have been way easier. But in specific EU countries was constantly met with "amazon does that, why bother" type of comments. Even on governmental level, talking about "innovative investments", it was like talking to walls. As you expect, a lot of companies (and people) left the European countries to go to the US, because it was WAY easier to get investments going there. If you already have the money, its one thing, but starting fresh in Europe is just silly. There are now much, MUCH more support projects in local and EU level, but its often too little, and more in the "sure, you do not need to pay taxes for X years, or we give you a small amount". But if you ever worked in IT, its those initial investments that are the hardest (material, people) until you get a actual product and with the right marketing. And that support comes not even close. Do i sound bitter? lol Now, the US is not exactly going down a great phase. If your into LLMs, sure but the rest has been rather mheh for a while.
  - 0xfaded 1y ago
    My experience in Europe is that investors look for teams of three: a CEO, a CTO, and one more person whose full-time job for the first two years will be filling out funding applications. That's a 50% overhead from day one.
    - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
      Is that really different from the US, where instead of (or in addition to) doing funding applications it's schmoozing with potential investors? Hacker News over the years has had tons of posts about getting investors interested, or "growth hacking" to make the numbers look better for said investors, and of course then there's going public which is the ultimate "looking for investors". But I suppose the main difference is private sector vs government.
      - 0xfaded 1y ago
        One difference is that the investors expect their money to be matched by some grant, so you have to do the work twice. The grants take into consideration investments, so it's basically part of the system.
  - mattlutze 1y ago
    It's very simple to found a company in the US that has access to the entire 50 states and all of the investors therein, with a single/simple accounting to manage. And you don't have to live in the US to do it. Europe/EU/EEA don't have a comparable setup. Found in one country, deal with workers in many, filings in all of the countries you're doing business, and more. The new proposed EU Incorporation would go a long way to lowering the bar for getting started and accessing pools of funds between investors in different countries.
    - johncolanduoni 1y ago
      I don’t know how the difficulty compares to the EU, but US states require a bunch of per-state filings if you’re hiring employees that live there, in addition to the different tax regimes.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  You mean the continent that invented pretty much everything you're using to write this post, including electric machines, computers and the world wide web? The anti-Europe propaganda here is insane.
  - doctaj 1y ago
    From context, I doubt they are saying that Europe has zero innovation — they’re likely trying to complain about current rules and regulations stifling innovation and progress today. No one thinks Europe has done nothing worthwhile, ever…
    - saubeidl 1y ago
      That too, is nonsense. The EU produces 18% of the world's scientific paper's compared to 12% for the US [0] [0] https://ec.europa.eu/assets/rtd/srip/2024/ec_rtd_srip-report-2024-chap-03.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/assets/rtd/srip/2024/ec_rtd_srip-report... Figure 3.1
      - frikskit 1y ago
        Are the papers useful/impactful or does the EU just blindly throw money at scammers with PhDs?
  - wslh 1y ago
    Innovation !== Business
- klabb3 1y ago
  If Europe carbon-copied the same regulatory framework as the US, do you think the rest of the world would start pouring trillions of euros into the financial sector, like with the USD? A global currency reserve hegemony empire is a very different thing from a treaty-based coalition of random countries. Look at Canada right next door is doing, and their GDP/capita based on the CAD. The only serious competition is another currency hegemon, China. This is not a coincidence. The same was true historically with the British and even Dutch empires.
mlinsey 1y ago
I dunno if ASML is lacking any political favor that Mistral can give them, they are already one of the most critical companies for Europe and the entire western supply chain. There is a possibility this is a step towards building a full-stack all-EU AI - if AI delivers on the hype, the EU will certainly want to have one they fully control without dependency on either the US or China. But this would mean having an EU-based alternative to both TSMC and NVIDIA as well, and it's hard to see how that happens. It probably looks something like the EU passing its own CHIPS act to open TSMC-run fabs on EU soil, making Nvidia chips that are then allocated to Mistral; there is non-EU IP there but the whole operation can at least take place on EU soil.
- dmix 1y ago
  Businesses are always looking ahead long term. All technical advantages fade over time.
  - sverhagen 1y ago
    Some business are looking ahead long term. Others aren't. It wouldn't be novel for a company like ASML to just stay focused no the goose with the golden egg, look at Intel (Pentium etc.) And then there's business that have some sort of long-term strategy, but just won't go all in, and end up with subpar acquisitions; I worked for Verizon: BlueJeans anyone? Or AOL? And those were just part of a pattern.
- jules 1y ago
  What they are buying is support of the French.
  - ph4evers 1y ago
    With a new French CEO, such a coincidence
mattlutze 1y ago
> Mistral is the only serious "AI" company in the EU right now (if you exclude company working on the hardware side). While Mistral is the one directly in the front of the Frontier LLM race at the moment, I would encourage you to also look at DeepL and Proton. They both actually have a sophisticated and significant setups for model research and deployment.
- bitpush 1y ago
  Proton as in the privacy mail company?
  - helsinkiandrew 1y ago
    And the privacy chatbot “where every conversation is confidential” https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai
    - bornfreddy 1y ago
      So, the one in Switzerland, which is not in EU?
- khamidou 1y ago
  Proton uses mistral under the hood
  - mark_l_watson 1y ago
    True, and their integration is pretty good - I laid down money for their Lumo paid plan - happy with it.
bondarchuk 1y ago
"it is also an amount that ASML can not afford to lose" Did you mean to say "it is not an amount that asml cannot afford to lose" or "it is an amount that asml can afford to lose"?
- yieldcrv 1y ago
  the former would create a double negative the latter changes the meaning it’s correct the first way, ASML would be harmed by losing that money “cannot afford to lose”
  - bondarchuk 1y ago
    "While 1.3B€ is not pocket change, it is also an amount that ASML can not afford to lose." - The sentence is framed like a contrast but then instead it says the same thing twice.
    - realty_geek 1y ago
      @bondarchuk you are right. Something wrong with that sentence.
      - 0x457 1y ago
        It reads like the second part counters the first, but it’s actually the same point repeated. It's not that hard to understand.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - kaechle 1y ago
      I’ll see your pedantry and raise you ... more pedantry. The sentence may be a bit clunky, but there’s nothing grammatically wrong with it. And you’re leaving out the first sentence, which frames the comparison: > ASML gross revenue was 28B€ in 2024, and their net income was 7.5B€. While 1.3B€ (the amount ASML invested in this 1.7B€ fund raise) is not pocket change, it is also an amount that ASML can not afford to lose. Worded another way: > ASML had a healthy margin of 7.5B€ on 28B€ in gross revenue in 2024. 1.3B€ isn’t a huge chunk of this, relatively speaking, but *it’s also an amount that ASML can’t afford to lose.* Still clunky. Still not wrong.
Saus 1y ago
>By funding Mistral, ASML might be able to buy a lot of political favor, while having stakes in a company that is unlikely to completely fail in the near future due to the EU administration support. With regards to the topic of political favor, this is an interesting read on where US government went to the Dutch government to pressure ASML in buying Mapper, which was at risk being auctioned off to China. The article is in Dutch so a translation might be necessary by your favorite translation tool: https://archive.is/jmpmU https://archive.is/jmpmU
jacekm 1y ago
I just want to remind our overseas friends that the EU is not a country and Mistral is French company. The EU rarely bets on a single firm in a single country, there are always 26 unhappy countries when something like that is about to happen ;) I am European and I do agree that we should support the European companies but such decision are always results of lengthy deliberations. Does anyone know if there is any company that is proactively supported by the EU?
- orbifold 1y ago
  Airbus
  - sabas123 1y ago
    Exception
    - ChocolateGod 1y ago
      Spotify perhaps?
      - omnimus 1y ago
        Why would you think that?
    - Panoramix 1y ago
      Northvolt, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, ASML itself, Arianespace, Thales, they all receive EU funding and support
      - aakkaakk 1y ago
        Northvolt went bankrupt recently.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        By that logic all EU companies receive EU funding.

by maeln 1y ago

tedggh 1y ago

[flagged]

benjiro 1y ago
Its not a "Europe" issue alone but even more locally. Saying this as a IT guy, we had way too many talks with banks about IT projects that in the US will have been way easier. But in specific EU countries was constantly met with "amazon does that, why bother" type of comments. Even on governmental level, talking about "innovative investments", it was like talking to walls. As you expect, a lot of companies (and people) left the European countries to go to the US, because it was WAY easier to get investments going there. If you already have the money, its one thing, but starting fresh in Europe is just silly. There are now much, MUCH more support projects in local and EU level, but its often too little, and more in the "sure, you do not need to pay taxes for X years, or we give you a small amount". But if you ever worked in IT, its those initial investments that are the hardest (material, people) until you get a actual product and with the right marketing. And that support comes not even close. Do i sound bitter? lol Now, the US is not exactly going down a great phase. If your into LLMs, sure but the rest has been rather mheh for a while.
- 0xfaded 1y ago
  My experience in Europe is that investors look for teams of three: a CEO, a CTO, and one more person whose full-time job for the first two years will be filling out funding applications. That's a 50% overhead from day one.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Is that really different from the US, where instead of (or in addition to) doing funding applications it's schmoozing with potential investors? Hacker News over the years has had tons of posts about getting investors interested, or "growth hacking" to make the numbers look better for said investors, and of course then there's going public which is the ultimate "looking for investors". But I suppose the main difference is private sector vs government.
    - 0xfaded 1y ago
      One difference is that the investors expect their money to be matched by some grant, so you have to do the work twice. The grants take into consideration investments, so it's basically part of the system.
- mattlutze 1y ago
  It's very simple to found a company in the US that has access to the entire 50 states and all of the investors therein, with a single/simple accounting to manage. And you don't have to live in the US to do it. Europe/EU/EEA don't have a comparable setup. Found in one country, deal with workers in many, filings in all of the countries you're doing business, and more. The new proposed EU Incorporation would go a long way to lowering the bar for getting started and accessing pools of funds between investors in different countries.
  - johncolanduoni 1y ago
    I don’t know how the difficulty compares to the EU, but US states require a bunch of per-state filings if you’re hiring employees that live there, in addition to the different tax regimes.
saubeidl 1y ago
You mean the continent that invented pretty much everything you're using to write this post, including electric machines, computers and the world wide web? The anti-Europe propaganda here is insane.
- doctaj 1y ago
  From context, I doubt they are saying that Europe has zero innovation — they’re likely trying to complain about current rules and regulations stifling innovation and progress today. No one thinks Europe has done nothing worthwhile, ever…
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    That too, is nonsense. The EU produces 18% of the world's scientific paper's compared to 12% for the US [0] [0] https://ec.europa.eu/assets/rtd/srip/2024/ec_rtd_srip-report-2024-chap-03.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/assets/rtd/srip/2024/ec_rtd_srip-report... Figure 3.1
    - frikskit 1y ago
      Are the papers useful/impactful or does the EU just blindly throw money at scammers with PhDs?
- wslh 1y ago
  Innovation !== Business
klabb3 1y ago
If Europe carbon-copied the same regulatory framework as the US, do you think the rest of the world would start pouring trillions of euros into the financial sector, like with the USD? A global currency reserve hegemony empire is a very different thing from a treaty-based coalition of random countries. Look at Canada right next door is doing, and their GDP/capita based on the CAD. The only serious competition is another currency hegemon, China. This is not a coincidence. The same was true historically with the British and even Dutch empires.

mlinsey 1y ago

I dunno if ASML is lacking any political favor that Mistral can give them, they are already one of the most critical companies for Europe and the entire western supply chain. There is a possibility this is a step towards building a full-stack all-EU AI - if AI delivers on the hype, the EU will certainly want to have one they fully control without dependency on either the US or China. But this would mean having an EU-based alternative to both TSMC and NVIDIA as well, and it's hard to see how that happens. It probably looks something like the EU passing its own CHIPS act to open TSMC-run fabs on EU soil, making Nvidia chips that are then allocated to Mistral; there is non-EU IP there but the whole operation can at least take place on EU soil.

dmix 1y ago
Businesses are always looking ahead long term. All technical advantages fade over time.
- sverhagen 1y ago
  Some business are looking ahead long term. Others aren't. It wouldn't be novel for a company like ASML to just stay focused no the goose with the golden egg, look at Intel (Pentium etc.) And then there's business that have some sort of long-term strategy, but just won't go all in, and end up with subpar acquisitions; I worked for Verizon: BlueJeans anyone? Or AOL? And those were just part of a pattern.
jules 1y ago
What they are buying is support of the French.
- ph4evers 1y ago
  With a new French CEO, such a coincidence

mattlutze 1y ago

> Mistral is the only serious "AI" company in the EU right now (if you exclude company working on the hardware side). While Mistral is the one directly in the front of the Frontier LLM race at the moment, I would encourage you to also look at DeepL and Proton. They both actually have a sophisticated and significant setups for model research and deployment.

bitpush 1y ago
Proton as in the privacy mail company?
- helsinkiandrew 1y ago
  And the privacy chatbot “where every conversation is confidential” https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai
  - bornfreddy 1y ago
    So, the one in Switzerland, which is not in EU?
khamidou 1y ago
Proton uses mistral under the hood
- mark_l_watson 1y ago
  True, and their integration is pretty good - I laid down money for their Lumo paid plan - happy with it.

bondarchuk 1y ago

"it is also an amount that ASML can not afford to lose" Did you mean to say "it is not an amount that asml cannot afford to lose" or "it is an amount that asml can afford to lose"?

yieldcrv 1y ago
the former would create a double negative the latter changes the meaning it’s correct the first way, ASML would be harmed by losing that money “cannot afford to lose”
- bondarchuk 1y ago
  "While 1.3B€ is not pocket change, it is also an amount that ASML can not afford to lose." - The sentence is framed like a contrast but then instead it says the same thing twice.
  - realty_geek 1y ago
    @bondarchuk you are right. Something wrong with that sentence.
    - 0x457 1y ago
      It reads like the second part counters the first, but it’s actually the same point repeated. It's not that hard to understand.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - kaechle 1y ago
    I’ll see your pedantry and raise you ... more pedantry. The sentence may be a bit clunky, but there’s nothing grammatically wrong with it. And you’re leaving out the first sentence, which frames the comparison: > ASML gross revenue was 28B€ in 2024, and their net income was 7.5B€. While 1.3B€ (the amount ASML invested in this 1.7B€ fund raise) is not pocket change, it is also an amount that ASML can not afford to lose. Worded another way: > ASML had a healthy margin of 7.5B€ on 28B€ in gross revenue in 2024. 1.3B€ isn’t a huge chunk of this, relatively speaking, but *it’s also an amount that ASML can’t afford to lose.* Still clunky. Still not wrong.

Saus 1y ago

>By funding Mistral, ASML might be able to buy a lot of political favor, while having stakes in a company that is unlikely to completely fail in the near future due to the EU administration support. With regards to the topic of political favor, this is an interesting read on where US government went to the Dutch government to pressure ASML in buying Mapper, which was at risk being auctioned off to China. The article is in Dutch so a translation might be necessary by your favorite translation tool: https://archive.is/jmpmU https://archive.is/jmpmU

jacekm 1y ago

I just want to remind our overseas friends that the EU is not a country and Mistral is French company. The EU rarely bets on a single firm in a single country, there are always 26 unhappy countries when something like that is about to happen ;) I am European and I do agree that we should support the European companies but such decision are always results of lengthy deliberations. Does anyone know if there is any company that is proactively supported by the EU?

orbifold 1y ago
Airbus
- sabas123 1y ago
  Exception
  - ChocolateGod 1y ago
    Spotify perhaps?
    - omnimus 1y ago
      Why would you think that?
  - Panoramix 1y ago
    Northvolt, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, ASML itself, Arianespace, Thales, they all receive EU funding and support
    - aakkaakk 1y ago
      Northvolt went bankrupt recently.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      By that logic all EU companies receive EU funding.