Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
No company has capitalized on the AI revolution more dramatically than Nvidia. Its revenue, profitability and cash reserves have grown since the introduction of ChatGPT just over two years ago – and the many competitive generative AI services that have been launched since then. And its share price has risen more than eight times.
During this period, the world’s top GPU manufacturer used its fortune in dancing to significantly increase investments in all kinds of startups, but especially in AI startups.
The chip giant increased 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. That’s a dramatic increase in investment compared to the previous four years combined, during which Nvidia funded only 38 AIs. Note that these investments exclude those made by his formal corporate VC fund, NVentures, which has also significantly increased its investments over the past two years. (PitchBook says NVentures committed to 24 deals in 2024, compared to just 2 in 2022.)
Nvidia he declared that the goal of its corporate investment is to expand the AI ecosystem by supporting startups that it considers to be “game changers and market creators.”
Of course, Nvidia isn’t the only big tech corporation writing checks to AI startups. But in the last two years, he was the most active. Compared to Nvidia’s 83 bids over two years (2023 and 2024), Alphabet participated in 73, while Microsoft made 40 rounds, PitchBook data shows.
Below is a list of startups that have raised rounds exceeding $100 million in the last two years where Nvidia is a named participant, organized from the highest to the lowest amount raised in the round.
The billion dollar club
OpenAI: Nvidia first supported the creator of ChatGPT in October, writing a $100 million check towards a colossal $6.6 billion round that values the company at $157 billion. The chipmaker’s investment was dwarfed by other OpenAI backers, especially Thrive, which according to the New York Times invested $1.3 billion.
xAI: Nvidia participated in Elon Musk’s $6 billion round of xAI. The agreement revealed that not all OpenAI investors follow his request to refrain from supporting any of its direct competitors. After investing in the ChatGPT maker in October, Nvidia has joined the xAI board a few months later.
Inflection: One of Nvidia’s first significant AI investments also had one of the most unusual results. In June 2023, Nvidia was one of several main investors in Inflection’s $1.3 billion round, a company founded by Mustafa Suleyman, who previously founded DeepMind. Less than a year later, Microsoft hired the founders of Inflection AI, paying $620 million for a non-exclusive technology license, leaving the company with a significantly diminished workforce and a less defined future.
wave: In May, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion round for the UK-based startup, which is developing a self-learning system for autonomous driving. The company tests its vehicles in the United Kingdom and
Secure superintelligence: In September, Nvidia was a backer of the new startup founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. U $1 billion round estimated rated the new 10 people $5 billion AI lab.
AI Scales: 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 company at nearly $14 billion.
The multi-hundred million dollar club
Crusoe: A startup that builds data centers reported to be leased to Oracle, Microsoft and OpenAI raised $686 million in late November, according to an SEC filing. The investment was led by Funders Fund, and the long list of other investors included Nvidia.
Figure AI: In February, AI robotics startup Raised figure a $675 million Series B from Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others. The round valued the company at $2.6 billion.
Mistral AI: Nvidia invested in Mistral for the second time when the French-based large-language model developer raised a $640 million Series B at a valuation of $6 billion in June.
Cohere: In June, Nvidia invested in Cohere’s $500 million rounda large provider of language templates serving businesses. The chipmaker first backed the Toronto-based startup a year earlier.
Perplexity: Nvidia first invested in Perplexity in November 2023 and has participated in every subsequent round of the AI search engine startup, including $500 million round in December, which values the company at $9 billion, according to PitchBook data.
On board the pool: In October, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside has announced that it has resurrected $500 million led by Bain Capital Ventures. Nvidia participated in the round, which valued the AI startup at $3 billion.
CoreWeave: Nvidia invested in the AI cloud computing provider in April 2023, when CoreWeave was resurrected $221 million in funding. Since then, CoreWeave’s valuation has jumped from about $2 billion to $19 billionand the company said it has its sights on a $35 billion IPO this year. CoreWeave allows its customers to rent Nvidia GPUs by the hour.
AI Division: In September, Nvidia invested him Japan-based startup that trains low-cost generative AI models using small datasets. The startup raised a crowd Series A round of about $214 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion.
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.
Reference: In June, the autonomous trucking startup raised a $200 million Series B round co-led by existing investors Uber and Khosla Ventures. Other investors include Nvidia, Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE.
Deals over $100 million
Configuration Labs: In December, Nvidia invested in the $155 million round by Ayar Labs, a Company that develops optical interconnects to improve the efficiency of artificial intelligence and energy efficiency. This was the third time Nvidia supported the startup.
Kore.ai: : The startup that develops enterprise-focused AI chatbots has grown $150 million in December 2023. In addition to Nvidia, investors participating in the financing include FTV Capital, Vistara Growth and Sweetwater Private Equity.
Weka: In May, Nvidia invested in a $140 million round for the native AI data management platform Weka. The round valued the Silicon Valley company at $1.6 billion.
Track: In June 2023, Runway, a startup that builds generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, achieved a $141 million Series C extension from investors, including Nvidia, Google and Salesforce.
Shiny machines: In June 2024, Nvidia participated in a $126 million Series C of Bright Machines, a smart robotics and AI software startup.
Vast Date: The startup that provides storage solutions for AI and data analytics has raised a $118 million Series E at a valuation of $9.3 billion in December 2023. This is the third time Nvidia has invested in Vast Data.
Factory: In September 2023, Nvidia invested in network chip designer Enfabrica $125 million Series B. Although the startup raised another $115 million in November, Nvidia did not participate in the round.
