Jensen Huang invests heavily in AI, with 49 transactions in a year

According to a report from ZhDongxi on June 20, NVIDIA's AI investment landscape is accelerating its expansion!

Data from the globally renowned investment tracking agency PitchBook shows that NVIDIA increased its venture capital efforts in 2024, participating in 49 rounds of financing for AI-related companies, compared to 34 rounds in 2023. In the four years prior to 2023, NVIDIA participated in a total of only 38 rounds.

It is important to note that these investments do not include those from its corporate venture capital fund NVentures, which participated in 24 rounds of transactions in 2024, up from just 2 rounds in 2022.

Specifically, since 2023, NVIDIA has participated in financing rounds where 5 companies raised over $1 billion each, 12 companies secured hundreds of millions, and 8 companies raised just over $100 million. The covered fields include large language models, multimodal large models, autonomous driving, robotics, computing power, quantum technology, and more.

In terms of geography, the vast majority of NVIDIA's investments are in U.S. companies, with a few in the UK, France, and Japan.

Below is a list of startups that NVIDIA has invested in since 2023, each raising over $100 million, arranged from highest to lowest financing amount:

5 Companies that Secured Over $100 Million: Inflection and Scale AI Had Founders Poached by Microsoft and Meta

The 5 companies that received investment from NVIDIA each raised over $1 billion, including top large model players like OpenAI and xAI, as well as startups like Inflection and Scale AI, which previously attracted attention when their founders were poached by Microsoft and Meta.

1. OpenAI: In October 2024, NVIDIA made its first investment in OpenAI, providing $100 million (approximately RMB 717 million) for its massive $6.6 billion (approximately RMB 47.319 billion) financing, at which time OpenAI's valuation reached $157 billion (approximately RMB 1.125612 trillion).

2. xAI: In December 2024, NVIDIA participated in a $6 billion (approximately RMB 43.017 billion) financing for Elon Musk's xAI. This transaction indicates that not all of OpenAI's investors adhered to its request to no longer support any direct competitors.

3. Inflection: In June 2023, NVIDIA became one of the lead investors in Inflection's $1.3 billion (approximately RMB 9.32 billion) financing. This was also one of NVIDIA's first significant AI investments. Inflection was founded in March 2022 by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google DeepMind Less than a year later, Microsoft hired two of the three founders of Inflection AI and spent $620 million (approximately RMB 4.445 billion) to obtain a non-exclusive technology license from Inflection, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of employees at this startup and making its future prospects even more uncertain.

4. Wayve: In May of this year, NVIDIA participated in a $1.05 billion (approximately RMB 7.529 billion) financing round for this UK startup. Wayve was founded in 2017 and focuses on the research and development of autonomous driving technology, currently testing its vehicles in the UK and the San Francisco Bay Area.

5. Scale AI: In May 2024, NVIDIA, along with Accel, Amazon, and Meta, invested $1 billion (approximately RMB 7.17 billion) in Scale AI. Founded in 2016, Scale AI provides data labeling services for training AI models. This financing round brought Scale AI's valuation close to $14 billion (approximately RMB 100.373 billion).

However, just last week, Meta confirmed the acquisition of a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3 billion (approximately RMB 102.524 billion), raising the latter's valuation to $29 billion (approximately RMB 208.916 billion). At the same time, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang will join Meta to lead its newly established "Super Intelligence Lab."

12 companies secured hundreds of millions, 4 startups received consecutive investments

12 startups secured hundreds of millions in financing, including the humanoid robot leader Figure AI, "NVIDIA's favorite" CoreWeave, and the French large language model developer Mistral AI, which received consecutive investments from NVIDIA.

1. Crusoe: In November 2024, the company raised $686 million (approximately RMB 4.928 billion), led by Founders Fund, with other investors including NVIDIA. Crusoe was founded in 2018 and was selected as the sole developer and operator of the "Interstellar Gateway," with a total investment of $500 billion (approximately RMB 36.6 trillion).

2. Figure AI: In February 2024, AI robotics startup Figure AI secured $675 million (approximately RMB 4.849 billion) in Series B financing from NVIDIA, OpenAI Startup Fund, Microsoft, and others. Following this round of financing, the company's valuation reached $2.6 billion (approximately RMB 18.641 billion). Figure AI was founded in 2022 and released its first robot demo powered by OpenAI's large model in 2024, announcing this year the termination of its agreement with OpenAI

3. Mistral AI: In June this year, NVIDIA invested in Mistral for the second time. This French large language model developer raised $640 million (approximately RMB 4.3017 billion) in Series B funding at a valuation of $6 billion (approximately RMB 43.017 billion). Mistral AI is a French startup founded in 2023 by former DeepMind and Meta researchers, focusing on open-source model development.

4. Lambda: In February this year, cloud provider Lambda, which offers model training services, completed a $480 million (approximately RMB 3.441 billion) Series D funding round, reaching a valuation of $2.5 billion (approximately RMB 17.924 billion). This round was co-led by SGW and Andra Capital Lambda, with NVIDIA participating as well. Lambda was founded in 2012, and a significant portion of its business involves leasing servers equipped with NVIDIA GPUs.

5. Cohere: In June this year, NVIDIA participated in a $500 million (approximately RMB 3.585 billion) funding round for Cohere, a large language model provider serving enterprises, founded in 2019. NVIDIA had previously invested in Cohere for the first time in 2023.

6. Perplexity: NVIDIA made its first investment in Perplexity in November 2023 and participated in every subsequent funding round for this AI search engine startup, including a $500 million (approximately RMB 3.585 billion) funding round in December last year, which valued the company at $9 billion (approximately RMB 64.526 billion). Perplexity was founded in 2022 and primarily develops a conversational response engine and search engine based on large language models.

7. Poolside: In October 2023, AI coding assistant startup Poolside announced it had secured $500 million (approximately RMB 3.585 billion) in funding, led by Bain Capital, with NVIDIA also participating. Poolside's valuation reached $3 billion (approximately RMB 21.509 billion). Poolside was founded in early 2023 and is headquartered in Paris, France.

8. CoreWeave: In April 2023, NVIDIA invested in this AI cloud computing provider, CoreWeave, which raised $221 million (approximately RMB 1.584 billion) at that time. Since then, CoreWeave's valuation has surged from approximately $2 billion (approximately RMB 14.339 billion) to $19 billion (approximately RMB 136.221 billion), and the company has applied for an IPO. CoreWeave was founded in 2017, allowing its customers to rent NVIDIA GPUs by the hour

9. Together AI: In February of this year, NVIDIA participated in the company's $305 million (approximately RMB 2.187 billion) Series B financing. Founded in 2022, the company provides cloud infrastructure for building AI models. This round of financing valued Together AI at $3.3 billion (approximately RMB 23.669 billion), co-led by Saudi Arabian venture capital firm Prosperity7 and General Catalyst, with NVIDIA participating as well. In 2023, NVIDIA made its first investment in the company.

10. Sakana AI: In September of this year, NVIDIA invested in this Japanese startup, which trains low-cost large models using small datasets. Founded in 2023, the company completed approximately $214 million (approximately RMB 1.534 billion) in Series A financing, achieving a valuation of $1.5 billion (approximately RMB 10.754 billion).

11. Imbue: Imbue is an AI research lab established in 2021 that is developing AI systems capable of reasoning and coding. In September 2023, it raised $200 million (approximately RMB 1.434 billion) from investors including NVIDIA, Astera Institute, and former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt.

12. Waabi: In June of this year, this autonomous trucking startup completed $200 million (approximately RMB 1.434 billion) in Series B financing, co-led by existing investors Uber and Khosla Ventures, with other investors including NVIDIA, Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding. Waabi was founded in 2021 by former Uber self-driving division chief scientist Raquel Urtasun.

8 Companies Securing Over $100 Million, Including Leading Video Generation Firms

Eight companies have secured over $100 million in financing, covering chatbot, quantum technology, large models in the medical field, video generation, and other enterprises.

1. Ayar Labs: In December 2024, NVIDIA invested $155 million (approximately RMB 1.111 billion) in Ayar Labs, which was founded in 2015 and is dedicated to developing optical interconnect technology to improve AI computing and power efficiency. This is NVIDIA's third investment in this startup.

2. Kore.ai: This startup, which develops enterprise-level AI chatbots, raised $150 million (approximately RMB 1.075 billion) in December 2023. In addition to NVIDIA, investors participating in this financing included FTV Capital, Vistara Growth, and Sweetwater Private Equity Kore.ai was established in 2014.

3. Sandbox AQ: In April this year, NVIDIA, along with companies like Google and BNP Paribas, invested $150 million (approximately RMB 1.075 billion) in Sandbox AQ. Sandbox AQ is a U.S. quantum technology company spun off from Google's parent company Alphabet, dedicated to developing large quantitative models (LQM) for complex numerical analysis and statistical computation. This investment raised Sandbox AQ's Series E funding to $450 million (approximately RMB 3.226 billion), and the company's valuation reached $5.75 billion (approximately RMB 41.225 billion).

4. Hippocratic AI: This startup was founded in 2023 and is developing large language models for healthcare. In January this year, it announced the completion of a $141 million (approximately RMB 1.011 billion) Series B funding round, with a valuation of $1.64 billion (approximately RMB 11.759 billion). The lead investors were Kleiner Perkins and NVIDIA, with original investors Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst also participating in this round. The company claims that its AI solutions can handle non-diagnostic tasks aimed at patients, such as preoperative procedures, remote patient monitoring, and appointment preparation.

5. Weka: In May this year, NVIDIA invested $140 million (approximately RMB 1.004 billion) in the AI-native data management platform Weka, raising the valuation of this Silicon Valley company to $1.6 billion (approximately RMB 11.4712 billion). Weka was founded in 2014.

6. Runway: In June 2023, the startup Runway, which creates generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, raised $141 million (approximately RMB 1.011 billion) in a Series C funding round from investors including NVIDIA, Google, and Salesforce. The AI video generation "top player" Runway was founded in 2018.

7. Bright Machines: In June 2024, NVIDIA participated in a $126 million (approximately RMB 903 million) Series C funding round for the smart robotics and AI-driven software startup Bright Machines. Bright Machines was founded in 2018.

8. Enfabrica: In September 2023, NVIDIA participated in a $125 million (approximately RMB 896 million) Series B funding round for the network chip design company Enfabrica. Enfabrica was founded in 2019

Conclusion: NVIDIA's Investment Goals Accelerate the Expansion of the AI Ecosystem

Since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, the competition in generative AI has become increasingly diversified, leading to a significant surge in NVIDIA's revenue, profitability, and cash reserves. During this period, NVIDIA has been leveraging this expanding wealth to substantially increase its investments in various startups, particularly in AI startups.

NVIDIA has previously revealed that its corporate investment goal is to expand the AI ecosystem by supporting startups that it considers "game changers and market creators." From its investments, it is evident that the geographical, founding time, and sectoral span of AI-related companies are extremely broad.

Author of this article: Cheng Qian, Source: Zhidx, Original Title: "Jensen Huang's Frenzied Investment in AI, 49 Deals in a Year"

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