Nvidia’s AI empire: A look at its top startup investments

No firm has capitalized on the AI revolution extra dramatically than Nvidia. Its income, profitability, and money reserves have skyrocketed because the introduction of ChatGPT over two years in the past — and the numerous aggressive generative AI providers which have launched since. And its inventory value soared. 

Throughout that interval, the world’s main high-performance GPU maker has used its ballooning fortunes to considerably enhance investments in all types of startups however significantly in AI startups.

The chip big ramped up its enterprise capital exercise in 2024, collaborating in 49 funding rounds for AI corporations, a pointy enhance from 34 in 2023, in accordance with PitchBook knowledge. It’s a dramatic surge in funding in comparison with the earlier 4 years mixed, throughout which Nvidia funded solely 38 AI offers. Be aware that these investments exclude these made by its formal company VC fund, NVentures, which additionally considerably ramped up its investing within the final two years. (PitchBook says NVentures engaged in 24 offers in 2024, in comparison with simply 2 in 2022.) 

In 2025, Nvidia has already participated in seven rounds.

Nvidia has acknowledged that the purpose of its company investing is to increase the AI ecosystem by backing startups it considers to be “recreation changers and market makers.” 

Under is an inventory of startups that raised rounds exceeding $100 million the place Nvidia is a named participant since 2023, together with new ones it has backed thus far in 2025,  organized from the very best quantity to lowest raised within the spherical.

The billion-dollar-round membership

OpenAI: Nvidia backed the ChatGPT maker for the primary time in October, reportedly writing a $100 million verify towards a colossal $6.6 billion spherical that valued the corporate at $157 billion. The chipmaker’s funding was dwarfed by OpenAI’s different backers, notably Thrive, which in accordance with the New York Instances invested $1.3 billion.

xAI:  Nvidia participated within the $6 billion spherical of Elon Musk’s xAI. The deal revealed that not all of OpenAI’s buyers adopted its request to chorus from backing any of its direct opponents. After investing within the ChatGPT maker in October, Nvidia joined xAI’s cap desk a number of months later.

Inflection:  One in all Nvidia’s first vital AI investments additionally had one of the vital uncommon outcomes. In June 2023, Nvidia was one in every of a number of lead buyers in Inflection’s $1.3 billion spherical, an organization based by Mustafa Suleyman, who earlier based DeepMind. Lower than a 12 months later, Microsoft employed Inflection AI’s founders, paying $620 million for a non-exclusive expertise license, leaving the corporate with a considerably diminished workforce and a much less outlined future.

Wayve: In Might, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion spherical for the U.Okay.-based startup, which is growing a self-learning system for autonomous driving. The corporate is testing its autos within the U.Okay. and the San Francisco Bay Space.

Scale AI: In Might 2024, Nvidia joined Accel and different tech giants Amazon and Meta to speculate $1 billion in Scale AI, which offers data-labeling providers to corporations for coaching AI fashions. The spherical valued the San Francisco-based firm at almost $14 billion.

The various-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars membership

Crusoe: A startup constructing knowledge facilities reportedly to be leased to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI raised $686 million in late November, in accordance with an SEC submitting. The funding was led by Founders Fund, and the lengthy listing of different buyers included Nvidia.

Determine AI: In February 2024, AI robotics startup Determine raised a $675 million Collection B from Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others. The spherical valued the corporate at $2.6 billion.

Mistral AI: Nvidia invested in Mistral for the second time when the French-based massive language mannequin developer raised a $640 million Collection B at a $6 billion valuation in June.  

Lambda: AI cloud supplier Lambda, which offers providers for mannequin coaching, raised a $480 million Collection D at a reported $2.5 billion valuation in February. The spherical was co-led by SGW and Andra Capital Lambda, and joined by Nvidia, ARK Make investments and others. A big a part of Lambda’s enterprise includes renting servers powered by Nvidia’s GPUs.

Cohere: In June, Nvidia invested in Cohere’s $500 million spherical, a big language mannequin supplier serving enterprises. The chipmaker first backed the Toronto-based startup in 2023.

Perplexity: Nvidia first invested in Perplexity in November of 2023 and has participated in each subsequent spherical of the AI search engine startup, together with the $500 million spherical in December, which values the corporate at $9 billion, in accordance with PitchBook knowledge.

Poolside: In October, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside introduced it raised $500 million led by Bain Capital Ventures. Nvidia participated within the spherical, which valued the AI startup at $3 billion.

CoreWeave: Nvidia invested within the AI cloud computing supplier in April 2023, when CoreWeave raised $221 million in funding. Since then, CoreWeave’s valuation has jumped from about $2 billion to $19 billion, and the corporate has filed for an IPO. CoreWeave permits its clients to hire Nvidia GPUs on an hourly foundation.

Collectively AI: In February, Nvidia participated within the $305 million Collection B of this firm, which affords cloud-based infrastructure for constructing AI fashions. The spherical valued TogetherAi at $3.3 billion, and was co-led by Prosperity7, a Saudi Arabian enterprise agency, and Common Catalyst. Nvidia backed the corporate for the primary time in 2023. 

Sakana AI: In September, Nvidia invested in the Japan-based startup, which trains low-cost generative AI fashions utilizing small datasets. The startup raised an enormous Collection A spherical of about $214 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion.

Imbue: The AI analysis lab that claims to be growing AI methods that may motive and code raised a $200 million spherical in September 2023 from buyers, together with Nvidia, Astera Institute, and former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt.

Waabi: In June, the autonomous trucking startup raised a $200 million Collection B spherical co-led by present buyers Uber and Khosla Ventures. Different buyers included Nvidia, Volvo Group Enterprise Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE.

Offers of over a $100 million

Ayar Labs: In December, Nvidia invested within the $155 million spherical of Ayar Labs, a firm growing optical interconnects to enhance AI compute and energy effectivity. This was the third time Nvidia backed the startup.

Kore.ai: The startup growing enterprise-focused AI chatbots raised $150 million in December of 2023. Along with Nvidia, buyers collaborating within the funding included FTV Capital, Vistara Development, and Sweetwater Non-public Fairness.

Hippocratic AI: This startup, which is growing massive language fashions for healthcare, introduced in January that it raised a $141 million Collection B at a valuation of $1.64 billion led by Kleiner Perkins. Nvidia participated within the spherical, together with returning buyers Andreessen Horowitz, Common Catalyst and others. The corporate claims that its AI options can deal with non-diagnostic patient-facing duties akin to pre-operating procedures, distant affected person monitoring, and appointment preparation.

Weka: In Might, Nvidia invested in a $140 million spherical for AI-native knowledge administration platform Weka. The spherical valued the Silicon Valley firm at $1.6 billion.

Runway:  In June of 2023, Runway, a startup constructing generative AI instruments for multimedia content material creators, raised a $141 million Collection C extension from buyers, together with Nvidia, Google, and Salesforce.

Vivid Machines: In June 2024, Nvidia participated in a $126 million Collection C of Vivid Machines, a sensible robotics and AI-driven software program startup.

Enfabrica: In September 2023, Nvidia invested in networking chips designer Enfabrica’s $125 million Collection B. Though the startup raised one other $115 million in November, Nvidia didn’t take part within the spherical.

Editor’s be aware: Earlier model of this story incorrectly acknowledged that Nvidia is a backer of Secure Superintelligence and an investor in Huge Knowledge’s Collection E spherical. Nvidia hasn’t invested in Huge Knowledge because the firm’s Collection D.