Nvidia’s AI empire: A look at its top startup investments

 

“Nvidia’s AI empire: A look at its top startup investments”

“Nvidia’s AI Empire: A Look at Its Top Startup Investments” — how Nvidia is using venture funding and strategic investments to build out its influence in the AI ecosystem, and who some of the major bets are. If you want, I can also pull up recent numbers / any updates beyond what's in the article.

What’s the Strategy

• Nvidia isn’t just selling GPUs; it’s investing in startups across the AI stack. The goal is to help build and expand the AI ecosystem — both in terms of infrastructure (cloud computing, data centres, chip interconnects etc.) and applications (LLMs, AI search, autonomous systems, etc.). Key Startups Nvidia Has Invested In
• Here are some of the top startups in which Nvidia has placed large bets (rounds > US$100M), grouped by magnitude and area of work:

 

Startup	What They Do / Domain	Round Size / Valuation / Notes
OpenAI	Foundational LLMs / Generative AI	Nvidia invested ~$100 million in a $6.6B round; valuation ~$157B.
xAI (Elon Musk’s AI startup)	Competing with OpenAI, with its chatbot and models	Nvidia participated in a ~$6B funding round.
Inflection AI	AI models / LLMs, deep learning researchers	~$1.3B round in 2023. Microsoft later acquired some of its tech/license.
Wayve	Autonomous driving, self-learning systems	Nvidia took part in a ~$1.05B round.
Scale AI	Data labeling and training infrastructure	$1B+ round, valued nearly $14B.
Mistral AI	LLM development, primarily in Europe / France	~$640M Series B, valuation ~$6B.
Cohere	Enterprise LLM applications / language AI	$500M round.
Perplexity	AI-powered search engine / assistant tools	Nvidia has invested in multiple rounds; one round valued the company at ~$9B.
CoreWeave	AI cloud infrastructure provider (renting Nvidia GPUs etc.)	Early investment ~$221M (2023); valuation jumped from ~$2B to ~$19B.
Lambda	Cloud platform for AI model training	~$480M Series D; business involves servers powered by Nvidia GPUs.
Figure AI, Crusoe, Waabi, Poolside, Imbue, Sakana AI	Various: robotics, data centers, autonomous trucking, AI co-coding tools, generative tools etc.	These are in the “hundreds of millions” rounds. Eg. Waabi raised ~$200M Series B.

• Its investments come from corporate VC activity (including NVentures) outside just making chips. By backing “game changers and market makers,” Nvidia both supports innovation and ensures there are customers for its hardware.
• The number of deals has increased sharply. In 2024, Nvidia participated in ~49 funding rounds involving AI firms, up from ~34 in 2023.

More info:Nvidia's AI empire: A look at its top startup investments | TechCrunch