Mozilla
US non-profit's for-profit subsidiary that builds Firefox; funded mainly by search royalties.
Mozilla partnered with French AI lab Mistral on 16 September 2026 to bring Mistral's models into Firefox's new Smart Window feature, days after Mistral closed a €3bn funding round.
Last refreshed: 22 September 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Timeline for Mozilla
Partnered with Mistral AI to integrate its models into Firefox
European Tech Sovereignty: Mistral puts its models into FirefoxBackground
Mozilla Corporation is the taxable subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, spun off in 2005 to handle Firefox development, product work and commercial deals. It is based in San Francisco, California.
Its revenue, historically around $500-700m a year, comes mainly from search-engine royalty deals, principally with Google, plus subscription products such as Mozilla VPN. In 2024 revenue reached $680m, of which $585m, 86%, was royalties. That dependence on a single rival's royalty stream is the backdrop against which the Mistral tie-up sits.
Firefox gains Mistral AI features
Mozilla and Mistral announced the Smart Window partnership on 16 September 2026, giving the French AI Lab a route into Firefox's user base that it could not easily buy from Google, Microsoft or Apple. The deal followed Mistral's €3 billion Series D, which closed on 8 September 2026 above a €21 billion valuation, with Samsung Electronics leading and Luxembourg joining as a new investor.
For Mozilla, whose revenue still depends mainly on royalty deals with Google, the tie-up adds AI capability to Firefox without building a model from scratch.
How does Mozilla make money?
What is Mozilla's partnership with Mistral?
Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Updated 22 September 2026. Editorial standards.