Introduction to Nvidia’s AI Revolution
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 — and the many competitive generative AI services that have launched since. And its stock price soared. During that period, the world’s leading high-performance GPU maker has used its ballooning fortunes to significantly increase investments in all sorts of startups, but particularly in AI startups.
Nvidia’s Venture Capital Activity
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’s 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. In 2025, Nvidia has already participated in seven rounds.
Goal of Corporate Investing
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.” The company is focused on supporting innovative startups that have the potential to disrupt the industry and create new opportunities for growth.
List of Startups Backed by Nvidia
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.
- OpenAI: Nvidia backed the ChatGPT maker for the first time in October, reportedly writing a $100 million check toward a colossal $6.6 billion round that valued the company at $157 billion.
- xAI: Nvidia participated in the $6 billion round of Elon Musk’s xAI.
- Inflection: One of Nvidia’s first significant AI investments also had one of the most unusual outcomes. In June 2023, Nvidia was one of several lead investors in Inflection’s $1.3 billion round.
- Wayve: In May, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion round for the U.K.-based startup, which is developing a self-learning system for autonomous driving.
- 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.
- Crusoe: A startup building data centers reportedly to be leased to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI raised $686 million in late November, according to an SEC filing.
- Figure AI: In February 2024, AI robotics startup Figure raised a $675 million Series B from Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others.
- 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 $6 billion valuation in June.
- 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.
- Cohere: In June, Nvidia invested in Cohere’s $500 million round, a large language model provider serving enterprises.
- Perplexity: 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 round in December.
- Poolside: In October, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside announced it raised $500 million led by Bain Capital Ventures.
- CoreWeave: Nvidia invested in the AI cloud computing provider in April 2023, when CoreWeave raised $221 million in funding.
- Together AI: In February, Nvidia participated in the $305 million Series B of this company, which offers cloud-based infrastructure for building AI models.
- Sakana AI: In September, Nvidia invested in the Japan-based startup, which trains low-cost generative AI models using small datasets.
- 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.
- Waabi: In June, the autonomous trucking startup raised a $200 million Series B round co-led by existing investors Uber and Khosla Ventures.
- Ayar Labs: In December, Nvidia invested in the $155 million round of Ayar Labs, a company developing optical interconnects to improve AI compute and power efficiency.
- Kore.ai: The startup developing enterprise-focused AI chatbots raised $150 million in December of 2023.
- 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.
- 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.
- Weka: In May, Nvidia invested in a $140 million round for AI-native data management platform Weka.
- Runway: In June of 2023, Runway, a startup building generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, raised a $141 million Series C extension from investors, including Nvidia.
- 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.
Conclusion
Nvidia’s significant investments in AI startups demonstrate its commitment to expanding the AI ecosystem and supporting innovative companies that have the potential to disrupt the industry. With its ballooning fortunes, Nvidia is well-positioned to continue investing in AI startups and driving growth in the industry. As the AI revolution continues to unfold, it will be exciting to see the impact of Nvidia’s investments and the innovations that emerge from the startups it supports.
