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

Nvidia’s AI Investment Strategy: How the $4.5 Trillion GPU Giant Backs OpenAI, xAI, Mistral, and 25+ Startups to Control the Future of Generative AI and Robotics

October 13, 2025 augustopjulio

Nvidia’s Ascendant AI Empire: Fueling the Ecosystem with Record-Breaking VC Investments

No single company has capitalized on the Generative AI revolution more dramatically and effectively than Nvidia. The world’s leading manufacturer of high-performance GPUs has seen its financial metrics—including revenue, profitability, and cash reserves—skyrocket since the introduction of ChatGPT and the subsequent launch of numerous competitive AI services over the last two years. This unprecedented success has driven its stock price to historic highs, positioning Nvidia as a staggering $4.5 trillion market cap company.

This ballooning corporate fortune is being strategically deployed. Nvidia has significantly intensified its investment activities in the startup landscape, particularly focusing on companies that are foundational to the future of Artificial Intelligence. According to detailed PitchBook data, Nvidia has already participated in 50 venture capital deals so far in 2025, a figure that has already surpassed the 48 deals the company completed across the entire year of 2024. This tally excludes the deals made by its formal corporate VC arm, NVentures, which has also accelerated its investment pace dramatically (reporting 21 deals this year, compared to just one in 2022).

Nvidia has clearly articulated that the goal of its aggressive corporate investing is not merely financial but strategic: to massively expand the AI ecosystem by backing startups it identifies as “game changers and market makers.” This strategy transforms the company from a critical hardware supplier into an essential, deeply integrated partner across the entire AI supply chain. The following list highlights the most significant investments—those rounds exceeding $100 million since 2023 where Nvidia is a named participant—demonstrating how far the chipmaker has spread its influence beyond simply supplying its core GPU products.

The Billion-Dollar-Round Club: Cementing LLM and Robotics Dominance

Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI

OpenAI: The undisputed leader in Generative AI and the maker of ChatGPT first received backing from Nvidia in October 2024 with a reported $100 million check, part of a colossal $6.6 billion round that valued the company at $157 billion. This equity investment, while dwarfed by contributions from other major backers like Thrive, is part of a much larger, strategic infrastructure partnership where the chipmaker announced in September that it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI over time to deploy massive, specialized AI infrastructure powered by its GPUs.
xAI: In a highly publicized counter-move to OpenAI’s attempts to discourage rival investments, Nvidia participated in Elon Musk’s xAI’s $6 billion round in December 2024. Furthermore, the chipmaker is expected to invest up to $2 billion in the equity portion of xAI’s planned $20 billion funding round, a deal explicitly structured to facilitate xAI’s massive purchase of Nvidia gear.
Mistral AI: The French-based large language model developer has seen multiple investments from the chipmaker. Nvidia invested in Mistral for the third time when the startup successfully raised a massive €1.7 billion (approximately $2 billion) Series C at a €11.7 billion ($13.5 billion) post-money valuation in September. This reinforces Nvidia’s commitment to supporting the global LLM ecosystem.
Reflection AI: In a major move to diversify the market, Nvidia led a $2 billion funding round for the one-year-old startup Reflection AI in October, valuing the company at $8 billion. Reflection AI is actively positioning itself as a credible US-based competitor to Chinese DeepSeek, focusing on advanced open-source LLMs that offer a less-expensive alternative to closed-source models from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Thinking Machines Lab: Nvidia was included in the extensive list of investors who backed former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab’s $2 billion seed round. The funding, formally announced in July, valued the new AI research startup at $12 billion, signaling the chipmaker’s interest in early-stage frontier AI research.
Inflection: One of the company’s earliest and most significant LLM investments, Nvidia was a lead investor in Inflection’s $1.3 billion round in June 2023. The company, co-founded by DeepMind founder Mustafa Suleyman, later had an unusual outcome: Microsoft hired its founders and paid $620 million for a non-exclusive technology license, leaving the original company with a diminished workforce but generating an impressive return on investment.

Robotics and Infrastructure

Figure AI: Reinforcing its bet on physical AI, Nvidia participated in Figure AI’s Series C funding round of over $1 billion in September, which valued the humanoid robotics startup at an astonishing $39 billion. The chipmaker first invested in Figure in February 2024 during its $675 million Series B round, underscoring its long-term view on the robotics sector.
Scale AI: In May 2024, Nvidia joined Accel, Amazon, and Meta in a $1 billion investment in Scale AI, a crucial company providing data-labeling services essential for training AI models. The round valued the San Francisco-based company at nearly $14 billion.
Nscale: This startup, which spun out of Akorn Energy in 2023, raised a $1.1 billion round in September. Nvidia later participated in a follow-on $433 million SAFE funding in October. Nscale is strategically building new data centers in the U.K. and Norway specifically to support OpenAI’s ambitious Stargate project, tying its infrastructure directly to Nvidia’s largest client.
Wayve: Focusing on Autonomous Vehicles, Nvidia participated in a $1.05 billion round for the U.K.-based startup Wayve in May 2024, which is developing a revolutionary self-learning system for autonomous driving. The chipmaker is expected to invest an additional $500 million in the startup, which is currently testing its vehicles across the U.K. and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Hundreds-of-Millions-of-Dollars Club: Diverse AI Bets

Generative AI and Enterprise LLMs

Cohere: The chipmaker has repeatedly backed the enterprise-focused large language model provider Cohere across multiple funding rounds, including the $500 million Series D that closed in August, valuing the company at $6.8 billion.
Perplexity: The AI search engine startup first received Nvidia investment in November 2023 and has seen the chipmaker participate in subsequent rounds, including a $500 million round in December 2024. This signals the company’s belief in a new, AI-native search paradigm.
Poolside: In October 2024, the AI coding assistant startup Poolside announced a $500 million round where Nvidia participated, valuing the company at $3 billion.
Imbue: The AI research lab dedicated to developing AI systems that can robustly reason and code raised a $200 million round in September 2023 with Nvidia’s backing, emphasizing its focus on long-term cognitive AI capabilities.
Reka AI: In July, the AI research lab Reka raised $110 million, tripling its valuation to over $1 billion. Nvidia’s participation, alongside Snowflake, highlights interest in next-generation multimodal AI.
Sakana AI: In September 2024, Nvidia invested in the Japan-based startup which trains low-cost generative AI models using smaller datasets, raising a massive $214 million Series A at a $1.5 billion valuation. This demonstrates a strategy to support efficiency and model diversity.
Hippocratic AI: Focusing on Healthcare AI, this startup raised a $141 million Series B in January. Nvidia participated, backing the development of large language models for non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks, such as remote monitoring and appointment preparation.

AI Cloud Infrastructure and Hardware

Crusoe: This startup, which builds data centers often leased to major cloud providers and OpenAI, raised $686 million in November 2024, with Nvidia participating, demonstrating a direct financial link to the rapid expansion of GPU cloud capacity.
Lambda: The AI cloud provider, whose business relies heavily on renting servers powered by Nvidia’s GPUs, raised a $480 million Series D in February. Nvidia co-led this round, ensuring strong support for a crucial partner in the GPU-as-a-service market.
Together AI: Nvidia participated in the $305 million Series B of this company, which offers cloud-based infrastructure for building AI models, strengthening the open-source model training ecosystem.
CoreWeave: Nvidia was an early investor in this GPU-cloud provider in April 2023, securing a significant shareholder position in a key infrastructure partner before its public listing.
Firmus Technologies: The Singapore-based data center company received $215 million in September, with Nvidia’s backing. Firmus is developing an energy-efficient ‘AI factory’ in Tasmania, showing interest in sustainable compute solutions.
Ayar Labs: Nvidia’s third investment in Ayar Labs‘ $155 million round focused on optical interconnects—a critical component for future AI compute efficiency and power savings within data centers.
Enfabrica: Nvidia invested in the networking chips designer Enfabrica’s $125 million Series B, securing a stake in companies developing hardware that helps its GPUs communicate faster within large clusters.

Autonomous and Industrial AI

Waabi: The autonomous trucking startup raised a $200 million Series B in June 2024, with Nvidia participating alongside Uber and Volvo Group, reinforcing its dominance in the autonomous driving and logistics sector.
Nuro: The self-driving delivery startup raised $203 million in August, with Nvidia participating despite the company’s valuation drop, indicating long-term commitment to robotics-driven logistics.
Bright Machines: In June 2024, Nvidia invested in a $126 million Series C for this startup focused on smart robotics and AI-driven software for industrial automation.

Deep Technology and Frontier Science

Commonwealth Fusion: The chipmaker participated in the nuclear fusion-energy startup’s $863 million funding round in August 2025. This deal, alongside investors like Google and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, highlights Nvidia’s commitment to backing deep tech that will require immense future compute power.
Sandbox AQ: Nvidia, alongside Google, invested $150 million in this startup developing large quantitative models (LQMs), which are crucial for complex numerical analysis and statistical calculations in fields like quantum computing.

Conclusion: Nvidia’s Strategic Control of the AI Landscape

The sheer volume and strategic nature of these investments reveal a clear strategy: Nvidia is actively investing in every layer of the AI value chain—from the foundational LLM startups and specialized AI research labs to the crucial GPU cloud providers and data center builders. By doing so, the $4.5 trillion chipmaker ensures that its GPUs remain the non-negotiable bedrock for the entire, rapidly evolving Generative AI economy.

What do you think of Nvidia’s aggressive investment pace? Which of these AI startups will be the biggest game-changer? Leave a comment below and/or share it on your social media. This way, we can inform more people about the hottest things in technology, AI investment, and the GPU market!

This news was originally published in:
Original source

Tech Next Portal