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 two years ago \u2014 and the many competitive generative AI services that have launched since. And its stock price soared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During that period, the world\u2019s leading high-performance GPU maker has used its ballooning fortunes to significantly increase investments in all sorts of startups but particularly in AI startups.<\/p>\n
The chip giant ramped up its venture capital activity in 2024, participating in 49 funding rounds for AI companies, a sharp increase from 34 in 2023, according to PitchBook data. It\u2019s a dramatic surge in investment compared to the previous four years combined, during which Nvidia funded only 38 AI deals. Note that these investments exclude those made by its formal corporate VC fund, NVentures, which also significantly ramped up its investing in the last two years. (PitchBook says NVentures engaged in 24 deals in 2024, compared to just 2 in 2022.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2025, Nvidia has already participated in seven rounds.<\/p>\n
Nvidia has stated<\/a> that the goal of its corporate investing is to expand the AI ecosystem by backing startups it considers to be \u201cgame changers and market makers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Below is a list of startups that raised rounds exceeding $100 million where Nvidia is a named participant since 2023, including new ones it has backed so far in 2025, organized from the highest amount to lowest raised in the round.<\/p>\n The billion-dollar-round club<\/strong><\/p>\n OpenAI: <\/strong>Nvidia backed the ChatGPT maker for the first time in October, reportedly writing a $100 million check<\/a> toward a colossal $6.6 billion round that valued the company at $157 billion. The chipmaker\u2019s investment was dwarfed by OpenAI\u2019s other backers, notably Thrive, which according to the New York Times invested $1.3 billion.<\/p>\n xAI:\u00a0 <\/strong>Nvidia participated in the $6 billion round of Elon Musk\u2019s xAI. The deal revealed that not all of OpenAI\u2019s investors followed its request<\/a> to refrain from backing any of its direct competitors. After investing in the ChatGPT maker in October, Nvidia joined xAI\u2019s cap table a few months later<\/a>.<\/p>\n Inflection:\u00a0 <\/strong>One of Nvidia\u2019s first significant AI investments also had one of the most unusual outcomes. In June 2023, Nvidia was one of several lead investors in Inflection\u2019s $1.3 billion<\/a> round, a company founded by Mustafa Suleyman, who earlier founded DeepMind. Less than a year later, Microsoft hired Inflection AI\u2019s founders, paying $620 million<\/a> for a non-exclusive technology license, leaving the company with a significantly diminished workforce and a less defined future.<\/p>\n Wayve: <\/strong>In May, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion round<\/a> for the U.K.-based startup, which is developing a self-learning system for autonomous driving. The company is testing its vehicles in the U.K. and the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/p>\n Scale AI: <\/strong>In May 2024, Nvidia joined Accel and other tech giants Amazon and Meta to invest $1 billion<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n The many-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars club<\/strong><\/p>\n Crusoe: <\/strong>A startup building data centers reportedly<\/a> to be leased to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI raised $686 million<\/a> in late November, according to an SEC filing. The investment was led by Founders Fund, and the long list of other investors included Nvidia.<\/p>\n Figure AI: <\/strong>In February 2024, <\/strong>AI robotics startup Figure raised a $675 million<\/a> Series B from Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others. The round valued the company at $2.6 billion.<\/p>\n Mistral AI: <\/strong>Nvidia invested in Mistral for the second time when the French-based large language model developer raised a $640 million Series B at a $6 billion valuation<\/a> in June.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Lambda: <\/strong>AI cloud provider Lambda, which provides services for model training, raised a $480 million Series D<\/a> at a reported $2.5 billion valuation<\/a> 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\u2019s business involves renting servers powered by Nvidia\u2019s GPUs.<\/p>\n Cohere: <\/strong>In June, Nvidia invested in Cohere\u2019s $500 million round<\/a>, a large language model provider serving enterprises. The chipmaker first backed the Toronto-based startup in 2023.<\/p>\n Perplexity: <\/strong>Nvidia first invested in Perplexity in November of 2023 and has participated in every subsequent round of the AI search engine startup, including the $500 million<\/a> round in December, which values the company at $9 billion, according to PitchBook data.<\/p>\n Poolside: <\/strong>In October, the <\/strong>AI <\/strong>coding assistant startup Poolside announced it raised $500 million<\/a> led by Bain Capital Ventures. Nvidia participated in the round, which valued the AI startup at $3 billion.<\/p>\n CoreWeave: <\/strong>Nvidia invested in the AI cloud computing provider in April 2023, when CoreWeave raised $221 million<\/a> in funding. Since then, CoreWeave\u2019s valuation has jumped from about $2 billion to $19 billion<\/a>, and the company has filed for an IPO<\/a>. CoreWeave allows its customers to rent Nvidia GPUs on an hourly basis.<\/p>\n Together AI: <\/strong>In February, Nvidia participated in the $305 million Series B<\/a> 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<\/a> in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sakana AI: <\/strong>In September, Nvidia invested in <\/strong>the <\/strong>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<\/a> at a valuation of $1.5 billion.<\/p>\n Imbue: <\/strong>The AI research lab that <\/strong>claims to be developing AI systems that can reason and code raised a $200 million round<\/a> in September 2023 from investors, including Nvidia, Astera Institute, and former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt.<\/p>\n Waabi: <\/strong>In June, the autonomous trucking startup raised a $200 million Series B<\/a> round co-led by existing investors Uber and Khosla Ventures. Other investors included Nvidia, Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE.<\/p>\n Deals of over a $100 million<\/strong><\/p>\n Ayar Labs: <\/strong>In December, Nvidia invested in the $155 million round<\/a> of Ayar Labs, a <\/strong>company developing optical interconnects to improve AI compute and power efficiency. <\/strong>This was the third time Nvidia backed the startup.<\/p>\n Kore.ai<\/strong>: <\/strong>The startup developing enterprise-focused AI chatbots raised $150 million<\/a> in December of 2023. In addition to Nvidia, investors participating in the funding included FTV Capital, Vistara Growth, and Sweetwater Private Equity.<\/p>\n Sandbox AQ:<\/strong> In April, Nvidia, alongside Google, BNP Paribas and others, invested $150 million<\/a> in Sandbox AQ, a startup developing large quantitative models (LQMs) for handling complex numerical analysis and statistical calculations. The investment increased Sandbox AQ\u2019s Series E round to $450 million and the company\u2019s valuation to $5.75 billion.<\/p>\n Hippocratic AI: <\/strong>This startup, which is developing large language models for healthcare, announced in January that it raised a $141 million Series B<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Weka: <\/strong>In May, Nvidia invested in a $140 million<\/a> round for AI-native data management platform Weka. <\/strong>The round valued the Silicon Valley company at $1.6 billion.<\/p>\n Runway:\u00a0 <\/strong>In June of 2023, Runway, a startup building generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, raised a $141 million Series C<\/a> extension from investors, including Nvidia, Google, and Salesforce.<\/p>\n Bright Machines: <\/strong>In June 2024, Nvidia participated in a $126 million Series C<\/a> of Bright Machines, a smart robotics and AI-driven software startup.<\/p>\n