No other company has harnessed the AI revolution as effectively as Nvidia. Since the launch of ChatGPT a little over two years ago, Nvidia has seen remarkable growth in its revenue, profitability, and cash reserves. Additionally, the company’s stock price has surged more than eight times its previous value.
As a leading manufacturer of high-performance GPUs, Nvidia has leveraged its expanding financial success to invest heavily in various startups, with a particular focus on AI enterprises.
In 2024, Nvidia significantly increased its venture capital activities, participating in 49 funding rounds for AI companies, a considerable rise from 34 in 2023, as reported by PitchBook data. This uptick represents a stark contrast to the previous four years combined, during which Nvidia invested in just 38 AI deals. It’s important to note that these figures do not include investments made through its corporate venture capital fund, NVentures, which has also boosted its investment activities in recent years. According to PitchBook, NVentures took part in 24 deals in 2024, up from only 2 in 2022.
Nvidia asserts that its corporate investment aim is to enhance the AI ecosystem by supporting startups deemed to be “game changers and market leaders.”
While Nvidia is not the sole large tech company investing in AI startups, it has emerged as the most active player over the past two years. With a total of 83 deals struck in 2023 and 2024, NVIDIA surpassed Alphabet’s 73 deals and Microsoft’s 40, according to PitchBook data.
The following is a list of startups that secured funding rounds exceeding $100 million in the past two years, with Nvidia as a notable participant, organised from highest to lowest funding.
Highlights
The Billion-Dollar Round Club
OpenAI: Nvidia made its first investment in the ChatGPT creator in October, contributing $100 million to a massive $6.6 billion funding round that valued the company at $157 billion. Although Nvidia’s investment was substantial, it paled compared to that of other backers, such as Thrive, which reportedly invested $1.3 billion according to the New York Times.
xAI: Nvidia participated in the $6 billion funding round for Elon Musk’s xAI. This investment showed that some of OpenAI’s investors did not abide by its request to avoid funding its direct competitors. Following its investment in OpenAI, Nvidia joined the xAI capital table a few months later.
Inflection: Nvidia was among the leading investors in Inflection’s $1.3 billion round in June 2023, a company established by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind. Less than a year later, Microsoft acquired Inflection AI’s founders for $620 million, securing a non-exclusive technology licence, which significantly reduced the company’s workforce and left its future uncertain.
Wayve: In May, Nvidia invested in a $1.05 billion round for this U.K.-based startup, which is developing an innovative self-learning system for autonomous driving. The company is actively testing its vehicles in both the U.K. and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Safe Superintelligence: Nvidia was a backer in the new startup founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever in September. The $1 billion funding round reportedly valued the new 10-person AI lab at $5 billion.
Scale AI: Nvidia participated alongside Accel and other tech giants such as Amazon and Meta in a $1 billion investment for Scale AI in May 2024. This company provides data-labeling services essential for training AI models and was valued at nearly $14 billion following the funding round.
The Many-Hundreds-of-Millions-of-Dollars Club
Crusoe: This startup, which is constructing data centres reportedly intended for leases to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI, raised $686 million in late November, as indicated by an SEC filing. The investment was predominantly led by Founders Fund, with Nvidia among the notable investors.
Figure AI: In February, the AI robotics startup Figure secured a $675 million Series B funding round, with investments from Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others. This round established the company’s valuation at $2.6 billion.
Mistral AI: Nvidia made a second investment in Mistral when the French large language model developer raised a $640 million Series B round in June, valuing the company at $6 billion.
Cohere: Nvidia joined Cohere’s $500 million funding round in June, which supports large language models for enterprises. Nvidia initially invested in this Toronto-based startup the year before.
Perplexity: Nvidia first backed Perplexity in November 2023 and has participated in every funding round since, including a $500 million round in December, bringing the company’s valuation to $9 billion, according to data from PitchBook.
Poolside: In October, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside announced a $500 million funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with Nvidia also participating. This round valued the AI firm at $3 billion.
CoreWeave: Nvidia invested in CoreWeave, an AI cloud computing provider, in April 2023, when the company raised $221 million. Since then, CoreWeave’s valuation has soared from approximately $2 billion to $19 billion, and it is reportedly aiming for a $35 billion IPO this year. CoreWeave allows its clients to rent Nvidia GPUs on an hourly basis.
Sakana AI: Nvidia invested in this Japan-based startup in September, which develops low-cost generative AI models using small datasets. Sakana AI raised a significant Series A round of approximately $214 million, achieving a valuation of $1.5 billion.
Imbue: The AI research lab Imbue focuses on creating systems capable of reasoning and coding. It raised a $200 million funding round in September 2023, with investments from Nvidia, Astera Institute, and Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt.
Waabi: In June, the autonomous trucking startup secured a $200 million Series B funding round, co-led by existing investors Uber and Khosla Ventures. Other noteworthy contributors included Nvidia, Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE.
Deals Exceeding $100 Million
Ayar Labs: In December, Nvidia invested in the $155 million funding round for Ayar Labs, a company innovating optical interconnects to enhance AI computing and power efficiency. This marked Nvidia’s third investment in the startup.
Kore.ai: The enterprise-oriented AI chatbot startup raised $150 million in December 2023. Alongside Nvidia, the funding round saw participation from FTV Capital, Vistara Growth, and Sweetwater Private Equity.
Weka: In May, Nvidia took part in a $140 million funding round for Weka, an AI-native data management platform. This round assigned a valuation of $1.6 billion to the Silicon Valley company.
Runway: In June 2023, Runway, a startup focused on creating generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, secured a $141 million Series C extension from a variety of investors, including Nvidia, Google, and Salesforce.
Bright Machines: In June 2024, Nvidia was involved in a $126 million Series C funding round for Bright Machines, a startup specialising in smart robotics and AI-driven software.
Vast Data: This startup, which focuses on storage solutions for AI and data analytics, raised $118 million during its Series E round at a valuation of $9.3 billion in December 2023. This represented Nvidia’s third investment in Vast Data.
Enfabrica: In September 2023, Nvidia invested in Enfabrica, a designer of networking chips, during their $125 million Series B round. Although the startup subsequently raised an additional $115 million in November, Nvidia did not participate in this later round.
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