Nvidia’s AI Investment Surge: Overview
No company has harnessed the AI revolution as effectively as Nvidia. Since the rise of ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms over the past two years, Nvidia’s revenue, profitability, and cash reserves have surged, propelling the company to a $4.5 trillion market valuation.
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Leveraging its dominant position as a leading high-performance GPU manufacturer, Nvidia has expanded aggressively into startup investments, particularly in artificial intelligence. In 2025 alone, the company has participated in 50 venture capital deals, already exceeding the 48 deals completed in all of 2024, according to PitchBook data.
These figures exclude investments by Nvidia’s corporate venture capital fund, NVentures, which itself has ramped up activity from just one deal in 2022 to 21 deals in 2025. Nvidia’s stated objective is to broaden the AI ecosystem by backing startups it identifies as “game changers and market makers.”
The Billion-Dollar Round Club: Major AI Startup Investments
- OpenAI: Nvidia’s first investment in OpenAI came in October 2024, contributing $100 million to a $6.6 billion funding round that valued the company at $157 billion. Despite this relatively modest stake, Nvidia announced a strategic partnership in September to invest up to $100 billion over time, aimed at deploying large-scale AI infrastructure.
- xAI: Defying OpenAI’s calls to avoid rival AI investments, Nvidia backed Elon Musk’s xAI with participation in a $6 billion round in December 2024. Bloomberg reports Nvidia plans to invest up to $2 billion in xAI’s forthcoming $20 billion equity round, supporting xAI’s acquisition of Nvidia hardware.
- Mistral AI: Nvidia’s third investment in the French large language model developer came during a €1.7 billion ($2 billion) Series C round in September 2025, which valued Mistral at €11.7 billion ($13.5 billion).
- Reflection AI: In October 2025, Nvidia led a $2 billion funding round for Reflection AI, a one-year-old U.S.-based startup positioning itself as a cost-effective competitor to Chinese AI firms.
- Thinking Machines Lab: Nvidia joined a consortium of investors in a $2 billion seed round for this AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, valuing the company at $12 billion.
- Inflection: Nvidia was a lead investor in Inflection’s $1.3 billion round in June 2023. However, the startup’s trajectory shifted after Microsoft acquired a $620 million non-exclusive license to Inflection’s technology, resulting in workforce reductions and strategic uncertainty.
- Nscale: After participating in a $1.1 billion funding round in September 2025, Nvidia also joined a $433 million SAFE round in October. Nscale operates data centers supporting OpenAI’s Stargate project in the UK and Norway.
- Wayve: Nvidia invested in a $1.05 billion round in May 2024 for the UK-based autonomous driving startup, with plans for an additional $500 million investment. Wayve is conducting vehicle tests in both the UK and San Francisco Bay Area.
- Figure AI: Participated in a Series C round exceeding $1 billion in September 2025, valuing the humanoid robotics startup at $39 billion. Nvidia initially invested in Figure AI during its $675 million Series B in early 2024.
- Scale AI: Nvidia joined a $1 billion round in May 2024 alongside Amazon, Meta, and Accel, valuing this data-labeling services provider at nearly $14 billion. Subsequently, Meta acquired a 49% stake for $14.3 billion and recruited key talent from Scale.
Notable Investments in the Hundreds-of-Millions Range
- Commonwealth Fusion: Nvidia participated in an $863 million funding round in August 2025 for this nuclear fusion energy startup, which is valued at $3 billion.
- Crusoe: Nvidia was among investors in a $686 million round for Crusoe, a data center startup leasing capacity to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI, according to a November 2024 SEC filing.
- Cohere: Nvidia invested in multiple rounds for this enterprise large language model provider, including a $500 million Series D round in August 2025, valuing Cohere at $6.8 billion.
- Perplexity: Nvidia backed this AI search engine startup in a $500 million round in December 2024. Perplexity was valued at $18 billion in July 2025, though Nvidia did not join a later $200 million round that increased the valuation to $20 billion.
- Poolside: Participated in a $500 million funding round in October 2024 for this AI coding assistant startup, which was valued at $3 billion.
- Lambda: Nvidia joined a $480 million Series D round in February 2025 for this AI cloud provider, valued at $2.5 billion. Lambda’s business includes renting Nvidia GPU-powered servers.
- CoreWeave: Nvidia invested $221 million in GPU-cloud provider CoreWeave in April 2023 when it was still a startup and remains a significant shareholder post-IPO.
- Together AI: Participated in a $305 million Series B round in February 2025 for this cloud infrastructure company valued at $3.3 billion.
- Firmus Technologies: Nvidia invested in this Singapore-based data center company’s A$330 million ($215 million) round in September 2025, supporting its energy-efficient AI factory development in Tasmania.
- Sakana AI: Nvidia backed this Japan-based startup in a $214 million Series A round in September 2024, focusing on training generative AI models with small datasets.
- Nuro: Participated in a $203 million funding round for this autonomous delivery startup in August 2025, which was valued at $6 billion.
- Imbue: Nvidia invested in this AI research lab’s $200 million round in September 2023, which aims to develop AI systems capable of reasoning and coding.
- Waabi: Nvidia joined a $200 million Series B round in June 2024 for this autonomous trucking startup, co-led by Uber and Khosla Ventures.
Significant Deals Over $100 Million
- Ayar Labs: Nvidia invested in a $155 million round in December 2024 for this company developing optical interconnects to enhance AI compute efficiency.
- Kore.ai: Participated in a $150 million round in December 2023 for this enterprise AI chatbot developer.
- Sandbox AQ: Nvidia co-invested $150 million in April 2025 for this startup specializing in large quantitative models, boosting its valuation to $5.75 billion.
- Hippocratic AI: Joined a $141 million Series B round in January 2025 for this healthcare-focused LLM developer, valued at $1.64 billion.
- Weka: Participated in a $140 million round in May 2024 for this AI-native data management platform, valued at $1.6 billion.
- Runway: Invested in a $308 million round in April 2025 for this generative AI media production startup, valued at $3.55 billion.
- Bright Machines: Joined a $126 million Series C round in June 2024 for this smart robotics and AI software startup.
- Enfabrica: Invested in a $125 million Series B round in September 2023 for this networking chip designer.
- Reka AI: Participated in a $110 million round in July 2025, tripling the startup’s valuation to over $1 billion.
FinOracleAI — Market View
Nvidia’s aggressive investment strategy underlines its commitment to cultivating a broad and influential AI ecosystem. By strategically backing a diverse array of startups — from large language models and autonomous vehicles to quantum computing and healthcare AI — Nvidia is positioning itself at the heart of AI innovation and infrastructure development.
- Opportunities: Expanding Nvidia’s market dominance through ecosystem growth, securing hardware demand, and fostering innovation in emerging AI sectors.
- Risks: Exposure to startup volatility, potential overextension across numerous sectors, and dependency on long-term success of investments.
- Strategic Impact: Nvidia’s investments reinforce its leadership in AI hardware and software, creating synergistic benefits across its product lines and partnerships.
Impact: Nvidia’s extensive startup investments are poised to solidify its role as a foundational enabler in the AI industry, driving sustained growth and innovation while managing risks inherent to venture capital.
