Nvidia's AI Empire: Top Startup Investments Unveiled

Nvidia has really hit the jackpot with the AI boom. Ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene a couple of years back, Nvidia's revenue, profits, and cash reserves have just gone through the roof. And their stock? It's been on a wild ride upwards.

With all that cash rolling in, Nvidia's been pouring money into startups, especially those in the AI space. In 2024 alone, they jumped into 49 funding rounds for AI companies, up from 34 the year before, according to PitchBook. That's a huge jump compared to the 38 AI deals they funded in the four years before that. And that's not even counting the investments made by their official venture capital arm, NVentures, which also stepped up its game, doing 24 deals in 2024 compared to just 2 in 2022.

And they're not slowing down. By early 2025, Nvidia's already been part of seven more rounds.

Nvidia says their goal with all this investing is to grow the AI ecosystem by supporting startups they think are going to shake things up and lead the market.

The billion-dollar-round club

Here's a rundown of the big shots Nvidia's backed since 2023, starting with the biggest rounds:

OpenAI: Nvidia got in on the action with OpenAI, the folks behind ChatGPT, in October, chipping in a cool $100 million to a massive $6.6 billion round that put OpenAI's value at $157 billion. Their investment was small potatoes compared to what others like Thrive put in, which was a whopping $1.3 billion, according to the New York Times.

xAI: Nvidia also threw their hat in the ring with Elon Musk's xAI, joining a $6 billion round. This move showed that not everyone was sticking to OpenAI's wish to not fund their direct competitors. After backing OpenAI in October, Nvidia quickly turned around and invested in xAI a few months later.

Inflection: Nvidia was one of the lead investors in Inflection's $1.3 billion round back in June 2023. This company, started by Mustafa Suleyman of DeepMind fame, took a weird turn when Microsoft scooped up its founders for $620 million less than a year later, leaving Inflection with a much smaller team and a murky future.

Wayve: In May, Nvidia joined a $1.05 billion round for Wayve, a U.K. startup working on self-learning systems for autonomous driving. They're testing their tech in the U.K. and around San Francisco.

Scale AI: Nvidia teamed up with Accel, Amazon, and Meta to pour $1 billion into Scale AI in May 2024. This San Francisco company helps train AI models with data-labeling services and was valued at nearly $14 billion.

The many-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars club

Crusoe: This startup, which is building data centers to lease to the likes of Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI, snagged $686 million in late November. Founders Fund led the charge, with Nvidia and a bunch of others joining in.

Figure AI: In February 2024, the AI robotics startup Figure raised a $675 million Series B, with Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others on board. The round valued the company at $2.6 billion.

Mistral AI: Nvidia backed Mistral for the second time when the French large language model developer raised a $640 million Series B in June, valuing the company at $6 billion.

Lambda: AI cloud provider Lambda, which helps with model training, raised a $480 million Series D in February at a $2.5 billion valuation. Nvidia joined the round, which was co-led by SGW and Andra Capital Lambda, and included ARK Invest and others. A big chunk of Lambda's business is renting out servers powered by Nvidia's GPUs.

Cohere: In June, Nvidia invested in Cohere's $500 million round, a large language model provider for enterprises. Nvidia had already backed the Toronto-based startup in 2023.

Perplexity: Nvidia first got involved with Perplexity in November 2023 and has been in every round since, including a $500 million round in December that valued the AI search engine startup at $9 billion, according to PitchBook.

Poolside: In October, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside announced a $500 million round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with Nvidia also participating. The round valued Poolside at $3 billion.

CoreWeave: Nvidia invested in the AI cloud computing provider CoreWeave in April 2023, when it raised $221 million. Since then, CoreWeave's valuation has skyrocketed from about $2 billion to $19 billion, and they've filed for an IPO. They let customers rent Nvidia GPUs by the hour.

Together AI: In February, Nvidia joined the $305 million Series B of Together AI, which offers cloud-based infrastructure for building AI models. The round valued the company at $3.3 billion and was co-led by Prosperity7 and General Catalyst. Nvidia first backed them in 2023.

Sakana AI: In September, Nvidia invested in the Japan-based Sakana AI, which trains low-cost generative AI models using small datasets. They raised a huge Series A round of about $214 million at a $1.5 billion valuation.

Imbue: The AI research lab Imbue, which is working on AI systems that can reason and code, raised a $200 million round in September 2023, with Nvidia, Astera Institute, and former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt among the investors.

Waabi: In June, the autonomous trucking startup Waabi raised a $200 million Series B round co-led by Uber and Khosla Ventures, with Nvidia, Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE also investing.

Deals of over a $100 million

Ayar Labs: In December, Nvidia invested in the $155 million round of Ayar Labs, which is developing optical interconnects to boost AI compute and power efficiency. This was the third time Nvidia backed the startup.

Kore.ai: The startup developing AI chatbots for enterprises raised $150 million in December 2023. Nvidia joined the round, along with FTV Capital, Vistara Growth, and Sweetwater Private Equity.

Hippocratic AI: In January, this startup, which is developing large language models for healthcare, announced a $141 million Series B at a $1.64 billion valuation led by Kleiner Perkins. Nvidia participated, along with returning investors like Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. They claim their AI can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks like pre-operating procedures and appointment prep.

Weka: In May, Nvidia invested in a $140 million round for Weka, an AI-native data management platform. The round valued the Silicon Valley company at $1.6 billion.

Runway: In June 2023, Runway, which is building generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, raised a $141 million Series C extension from investors including Nvidia, Google, and Salesforce.

Bright Machines: In June 2024, Nvidia joined a $126 million Series C for Bright Machines, a startup focused on smart robotics and AI-driven software.

Enfabrica: In September 2023, Nvidia invested in the $125 million Series B of Enfabrica, a networking chips designer. Although Enfabrica raised another $115 million in November, Nvidia didn't join that round.

*Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Nvidia is a backer of Safe Superintelligence and an investor in Vast Data's Series E round. Nvidia hasn't invested in Vast Data since the company's Series D.*