Nvidia has dramatically capitalized on the AI revolution, experiencing a significant surge in its revenue, profitability, and cash reserves since the introduction of ChatGPT over three years ago and the subsequent launch of many competitive generative AI services. Its stock price has soared, making it a $4.6 trillion market cap company. The world’s leading high-performance GPU maker has leveraged its ballooning fortunes to substantially increase investments in startups, particularly within the AI sector. According to PitchBook data, Nvidia participated in nearly 67 venture capital deals in 2025, surpassing the 54 deals completed in all of 2024. These figures exclude investments made by its formal corporate VC fund, NVentures, which also significantly increased its investment pace, engaging in 30 deals this year compared to just one in 2022. Nvidia’s stated goal for its corporate investing is to expand the AI ecosystem by backing startups it identifies as “game changers and market makers.” This broad investment strategy showcases Nvidia's extensive influence in the tech industry, extending far beyond its primary role as a product supplier.

A notable portion of Nvidia’s investments falls into the ‘billion-dollar-round club,’ highlighting its commitment to major players. Nvidia backed OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker, for the first time in October 2024, reportedly investing $100 million as part of a colossal $6.6 billion round that valued the company at $157 billion. Although PitchBook data does not indicate Nvidia’s participation in OpenAI’s $40 billion funding round in March, the chipmaker announced in September its intention to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI over time, structured as a strategic partnership for deploying massive AI infrastructure, though later noting there’s no assurance such an investment will be completed. In November 2025, Nvidia made its first direct investment in Anthropic, committing up to $10 billion as part of a strategic round that included a $5 billion check from Microsoft, alongside a “circular” spending agreement where Anthropic committed to spending $30 billion on Microsoft Azure compute capacity and purchasing Nvidia’s future Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems. In November, Nvidia made its first strategic investment in Cursor, an AI-powered code assistant, participating in a $2.3 billion Series D round that valued Cursor at $29.3 billion. In 2024, Nvidia also participated in Elon Musk’s xAI’s $6 billion round in December, and is slated to invest up to $2 billion in the equity portion of xAI’s planned $20 billion funding round to facilitate purchases of Nvidia gear. Nvidia invested in Mistral AI for the third time when the French LLM developer raised €1.7 billion (about $2 billion) in a Series C round in September, valuing it at €11.7 billion ($13.5 billion). In October, Nvidia was a significant investor in Reflection AI’s $2 billion funding round, valuing the one-year-old startup at $8 billion, as Reflection AI positions itself as a U.S.-based competitor to Chinese DeepSeek. Nvidia also backed Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab’s $2 billion seed round in July, which valued the new AI startup at $12 billion. One of Nvidia’s first significant AI investments was in Inflection in June 2023, participating in its $1.3 billion round, a company whose founders were later hired by Microsoft, leading to a diminished workforce and an uncertain future for Inflection. In October, Nvidia participated in Crusoe’s $1.4 billion Series E round, valuing the AI data center developer at $10 billion; Crusoe is a key infrastructure partner for the ‘Stargate’ project, powering OpenAI’s workloads. After Nscale’s $1.1 billion round in September, Nvidia participated in its $433 million SAFE funding in October, with Nscale building data centers for OpenAI’s Stargate project in the U.K. and Norway. In May 2024, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion round for Wayve, a U.K.-based autonomous driving startup, with an additional $500 million investment expected. In September, Nvidia participated in Figure AI’s Series C funding round of over $1 billion, valuing the humanoid robotics startup at $39 billion. In May 2024, Nvidia joined other tech giants to invest $1 billion in Scale AI, a data-labeling service provider, which was valued at nearly $14 billion.

Nvidia has also made numerous investments in the ‘many-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars club.’ In August, the chipmaker participated in Commonwealth Fusion’s $863 million funding round, valuing the nuclear fusion-energy startup at $3 billion. Nvidia has invested in enterprise LLM provider Cohere across multiple funding rounds, including a $500 million Series D in August, valuing Cohere at $6.8 billion. Nvidia first invested in Perplexity in November 2023 and has participated in most subsequent funding rounds of the AI search engine startup, including a $500 million round in December 2024, which valued Perplexity at $18 billion. In October 2024, Nvidia participated in Poolside’s $500 million round for its AI coding assistant, valuing it at $3 billion. Nvidia joined a $480 million Series D round for AI cloud provider Lambda in February, which was valued at $2.5 billion, and a significant part of Lambda’s business involves renting servers powered by Nvidia’s GPUs. In December, Nvidia participated in a $300 million Series B for Black Forest Labs, a German startup behind “Flux” image generation models, valuing it at $3.25 billion. Nvidia invested in GPU-cloud provider CoreWeave when it was a startup in April 2023, raising $221 million, and remains a significant shareholder. In February, Nvidia participated in Together AI’s $305 million Series B, valuing it at $3.3 billion, for cloud-based infrastructure for building AI models. In September, Firmus Technologies, a Singapore-based data center company, received AU$330 million (approximately $215 million) in funding, with Nvidia as an investor, to develop an energy-efficient “AI factory” in Tasmania. In October, Nvidia joined other tech giants to lead a $260 million Series F round into Uniphore, a Business AI company. In September 2024, Nvidia invested in Sakana AI, a Japan-based startup, which raised a Series A round of about $214 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. In August, Nvidia participated in a $203 million funding round for self-driving delivery startup Nuro, valuing it at $6 billion. Nvidia was also an investor in Imbue’s $200 million round in September 2023, an AI research lab developing reasoning and coding systems, and participated in autonomous trucking startup Waabi’s $200 million Series B round in June 2024.

Additionally, Nvidia has engaged in several deals exceeding $100 million. In December 2024, Nvidia invested in Ayar Labs’ $155 million round, marking its third time backing the company developing optical interconnects. Nvidia also participated in Kore.ai’s $150 million funding round in December 2023 for enterprise-focused AI chatbots. In April, Nvidia invested $150 million in Sandbox AQ, a startup developing large quantitative models, which increased Sandbox AQ’s Series E round to $450 million and its valuation to $5.75 billion. Nvidia participated in Hippocratic AI’s $141 million Series B round in January, valuing the healthcare LLM startup at $1.64 billion. In May 2024, Nvidia invested in a $140 million round for AI-native data management platform Weka, valued at $1.6 billion. In April, Nvidia participated in Runway’s $308 million round, which valued the generative AI models for media production startup at $3.55 billion. In June 2024, Nvidia participated in Bright Machines’ $126 million Series C for smart robotics and AI-driven software. In September 2023, Nvidia invested in networking chips designer Enfabrica’s $125 million Series B, and later reportedly spent over $900 million to “acquihire” Enfabrica’s CEO and staff while licensing its technology. In July, AI research lab Reka raised $110 million in a round that included Nvidia, tripling the startup’s valuation to over $1 billion.