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

No company has capitalized on the AI revolution more dramatically than Nvidia. Its revenue, profitability, and cash reserves have skyrocketed since the introduction of ChatGPT over three years ago — and the many competitive generative AI services that have launched since. Its stock price has soared, making it a $4.6 trillion market cap company. 

The world’s leading high-performance GPU maker has used its ballooning fortunes to significantly increase investments in startups, particularly in AI. 

Nvidia has participated in nearly 67 venture capital deals in 2025, surpassing the 54 deals the company completed in all of 2024, according to PitchBook data. Note that these investments exclude those made by its formal corporate VC fund, NVentures, which also significantly increased its investment pace over that period. (PitchBook says NVentures engaged in 30 deals this year, compared to just one in 2022.)  

Nvidia has stated that the goal of its corporate investing is to expand the AI ecosystem by backing startups it considers to be “game changers and market makers.”  

Below is a list of startups that raised rounds exceeding $100 million since 2023 where Nvidia is a named participant, organized from the highest to lowest amount raised in the round. 

This list shows just how far and wide Nvidia has spread its tentacles in the tech industry, beyond supplying its products.

The billion-dollar-round club

OpenAI: Nvidia backed the ChatGPT maker for the first time in October 2024, reportedly writing a $100 million check as part of a colossal $6.6 billion round that valued the company at $157 billion. The chipmaker’s investment was dwarfed by OpenAI’s other backers, notably Thrive, which invested $1.3 billion according to The New York Times. While PitchBook data indicates Nvidia did not participate in OpenAI’s $40 billion funding round that closed in March, the company announced in September that it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI over time, structured as a strategic partnership to deploy massive AI infrastructure. Nvidia later revealed in its quarterly filings that it might not follow through, stating, “There is no assurance that any investment will be completed on expected terms, if at all.”

Anthropic: In November 2025, Nvidia made its first direct investment in the AI lab, committing up to $10 billion as part of a strategic round that included a $5 billion check from Microsoft. In a “circular” spending agreement, Anthropic committed to spending $30 billion on Microsoft Azure compute capacity, as well as buy Nvidia’s future Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems.

Cursor: In November, Nvidia made its first strategic investment in the AI-powered code assistant participating in a massive $2.3 billion Series D round co-led by Accel and Coatue. The deal valued Cursor at $29.3 billion, a nearly 15-fold increase since the start of the year. While Nvidia has long been an enterprise customer, the round marked its official entry as a shareholder alongside Google.

xAI: In 2024, OpenAI tried to persuade its investors not to invest in any of its rivals. But Nvidia participated in the $6 billion round of Elon Musk’s xAI last December anyway. Nvidia will also invest up to $2 billion in the equity portion of xAI’s planned $20 billion funding round, Bloomberg reported, a deal structured to help xAI purchase more Nvidia gear. 

Mistral AI: Nvidia invested in Mistral for the third time when the French-based large language model (LLM) developer raised a €1.7 billion (about $2 billion) Series C at a €11.7billion ($13.5 billion) post-money valuation in September.   

Reflection AI: In October, Nvidia was one of the most significant investors in Reflection AI, contributing to a $2 billion funding round that valued the one-year-old startup at $8 billion. Reflection AI is positioning itself as a U.S.-based competitor to Chinese DeepSeek, whose open source LLM offers a less-expensive alternative to closed source models from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. 

Thinking Machines Lab: Nvidia was among a long list of investors who backed former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab’s $2 billion seed round. The funding, which was formally announced in July, valued the new AI startup at $12 billion. 

Inflection: One of Nvidia’s first significant AI investments also had one of the more unusual (but increasingly common) outcomes. In June 2023, Nvidia was one of several lead investors in Inflection’s $1.3 billion round, a company co-founded by Mustafa Suleyman, the famed founder of DeepMind. Less than a year later, Microsoft hired Inflection’s founders, paying $620 million for a non-exclusive technology license, leaving the company with a significantly diminished workforce and a less defined future. 

Crusoe: In October, the chipmaker participated in a $1.4 billion Series E round that valued the AI data center developer at $10 billion. Nvidia first backed the company in late 2024 during its Series D. Crusoe is a key infrastructure partner for the ‘Stargate’ project, building massive data center campuses in Texas and Wyoming to be leased to Oracle specifically to power OpenAI’s workloads.

Nscale: After the startup’s $1.1 billion round in September, Nvidia participated in Nscale’s $433 million SAFE funding in October. That’s a deal that secures future equity for investors. Nscale, which formed in 2023 after spinning out of Australian cryptocurrency mining company Arkon Energy, is building data centers in the U.K. and Norway for OpenAI’s Stargate project. 

Wayve: In May 2024, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion round for the U.K.-based startup, which is developing a self-learning system for autonomous driving. Nvidia is expected to invest an additional $500 million in Wayve, the startup told TechCrunch in September. Wayve is testing its vehicles in the U.K. and the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Figure AI: In September, Nvidia participated in Figure AI’s Series C funding round of over $1 billion, which valued the humanoid robotics startup at $39 billion. The chipmaker first invested in Figure in February 2024 when the company raised a $675 million Series B round at a $2.6 billion valuation. 

Scale AI: In May 2024, Nvidia joined Accel and other tech giants Amazon and Meta to invest $1 billion in Scale AI, which provides data-labeling services to companies for training AI models. The round valued the San Francisco-based company at nearly $14 billion. In June, Meta invested $14.3 billion for a 49% stake of Scale and hired away the company’s co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang, as well as several other key Scale employees. 

The many-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars club

Commonwealth Fusion: The chipmaker participated in the nuclear fusion-energy startup’s $863 million funding round in August. The deal, which also included investors like Google and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, valued the company at $3 billion. 

Cohere: The chipmaker has invested in enterprise LLM provider Cohere across multiple funding rounds, including the $500 million Series D, which closed in August, valuing Cohere at $6.8 billion. Nvidia first backed the Toronto-based startup in 2023. 

Perplexity: Nvidia first invested in Perplexity in November 2023 and has participated in most of the subsequent funding rounds of the AI search engine startup, including the $500 million round closed in December 2024. The chipmaker participated in the company’s July funding round, which valued Perplexity at $18 billion. However, Nvidia did not join the startup’s subsequent $200 million fundraise in September, which boosted the company’s valuation to $20 billion, according to PitchBook data. 

Poolside: In October 2024, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside announced it raised $500 million led by Bain Capital Ventures. Nvidia participated in the round, which valued the AI startup at $3 billion. 

Lambda: AI cloud provider Lambda, which provides services for model training, raised a $480 million Series D at a reported $2.5 billion valuation in February. The round was co-led by SGW and Andra Capital Lambda, and joined by Nvidia, ARK Invest, and others. A significant part of Lambda’s business involves renting servers powered by Nvidia’s GPUs. 

Black Forest Labs: Nvidia participated in a $300 million Series B for the German startup behind the “Flux” image generation models in December. The round, which was co-led by Salesforce Ventures and Anjney Midha (AMP) valued the company at $3.25 billion.

CoreWeave: Although CoreWeave is no longer a startup, but a public company, Nvidia invested in GPU-cloud provider when it was still one, back in April 2023. That’s when CoreWeave raised $221 million in funding. Nvidia remains a significant shareholder. 

Together AI: In February, Nvidia participated in the $305 million Series B of this company, which offers cloud-based infrastructure for building AI models. The round valued Together AI at $3.3 billion and was co-led by Prosperity7, a Saudi Arabian venture firm, and General Catalyst. Nvidia backed the company for the first time in 2023.  

Firmus Technologies: In September, Firmus Technologies, the Singapore-based data center company, received an AU$330 million (approximately $215 million) in funding at an AU$1.85 billion ($1.2 billion) valuation from investors, including Nvidia. Firmus is developing an energy-efficient “AI factory” in Tasmania, an island state of Australia. The startup originally provided cooling technologies for Bitcoin mining. 

Uniphore: In October, Nvidia joined fellow tech giants AMD, Snowflake, and Databricks to lead a $260 million Series F round into this Business AI company. Uniphore’s multimodal platform helps enterprises automate complex workflows and deploy “AI agents” across customer service, sales, and marketing.

Sakana AI: In September 2024, Nvidia invested in the Japan-based startup, which trains low-cost generative AI models using small datasets. The startup raised a massive Series A round of about $214 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion. Sakana raised another $135 million at a $2.65 billion valuation in November, but Nvidia didn’t participate in the round.

Nuro: In August, Nvidia participated in a $203 million funding round for the self-driving delivery startup. The deal valued Nuro at $6 billion, a significant 30% drop from its peak at $8.6 billion valuation in 2021. 

Imbue: The AI research lab that claims to be developing AI systems that can reason and code raised a $200 million round in September 2023 from investors, including Nvidia, Astera Institute, and former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt. 

Waabi: In June 2024, the autonomous trucking startup raised a $200 million Series B round co-led by existing investors Uber and Khosla Ventures. Other investors included Nvidia, Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE. 

Deals of over a $100 million

Ayar Labs: In December 2024, Nvidia invested in the $155 million round of Ayar Labs, a company developing optical interconnects to improve AI compute and power efficiency. This was the third time Nvidia backed the startup. 

Kore.ai: The startup developing enterprise-focused AI chatbots raised $150 million in December of 2023. In addition to Nvidia, investors participating in the funding included FTV Capital, Vistara Growth, and Sweetwater Private Equity. 

Sandbox AQ: In April, Nvidia, alongside Google, BNP Paribas, and others, invested $150 million in Sandbox AQ, a startup developing large quantitative models (LQMs) for handling complex numerical analysis and statistical calculations. The investment increased Sandbox AQ’s Series E round to $450 million and the company’s valuation to $5.75 billion. 

Hippocratic AI: This startup, which is developing large language models for healthcare, announced in January that it raised a $141 million Series B at a valuation of $1.64 billion led by Kleiner Perkins. Nvidia participated in the round, along with returning investors Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and others. The company claims that its AI solutions can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks such as pre-operating procedures, remote patient monitoring, and appointment preparation. Hippocratic raised another $126 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion in November, but Nvidia didn’t participate in the round.

Weka: In May 2024, Nvidia invested in a $140 million round for AI-native data management platform Weka. The round valued the Silicon Valley company at $1.6 billion. 

Runway: In April, Nvidia participated in Runway’s $308 million round, which was led by General Atlantic and valued the startup developing generative AI models for media production at $3.55 billion, according to PitchBook data. The chipmaker has been an investor in since 2023.  

Bright Machines: In June 2024, Nvidia participated in a $126 million Series C of Bright Machines, a smart robotics and AI-driven software startup. 

Enfabrica: In September 2023, Nvidia invested in networking chips designer Enfabrica’s $125 million Series B. The startup raised another $115 million in November 2024, but Nvidia didn’t participate in the round. In September, Nvidia reportedly spent over $900 million to hire Enfabrica’s CEO and staff while licensing its technology, in a deal structured as an “acquihire.”

Reka AI: In July, AI research lab Reka raised $110 million in a round that included Snowflake and Nvidia. The deal tripled the startup’s valuation to over $1 billion, according to Bloomberg.    

This post was first published in January 2025.