Jensen Huang is best known for building the world’s dominant AI chip maker. But with soaring demand for graphics processing units turning Nvidia into a $4.5 trillion powerhouse, the company has quietly expanded its influence beyond hardware, pouring billions into startups across the AI ecosystem. Today, almost every major player in the industry, from OpenAI to xAI, has some financial ties to the Santa Clara, California, giant.
Over the past two decades, Nvidia has participated in 177 funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. Most of this activity has come since 2023, tracking the massive rise in generative AI. The number does not include NVentures, Nvidia’s official investment arm, which made an additional 83 investments.
Many of Nvidia’s largest checks have gone to its customers, raising questions about so-called circular financing arrangements that can artificially boost perceptions of demand. Huang has rejected these criticisms, arguing that Nvidia’s contributions represent only a small portion of the capital required by major AI developers.
The pace is accelerating. In just the first two months of 2026, Nvidia has joined 11 funding rounds. They include a $1.5 billion raise from Wayve, the London-based robotics startup, and a $1 billion round for World Labs, the model-building venture founded by Fei-Fei Li. Recently, Nvidia participated in an impressive $110 billion funding round revealed by OpenAI.
Here are the top 10 AI startups backed by Nvidia:
OpenAI is valued at $840 billion
Nvidia and OpenAI formalized their financial relationship in October 2024, when the chipmaker joined a $6.6 billion financing round. A year later, Nvidia pledged to invest up to $100 billion over time, while OpenAI signaled plans to buy up to 10 gigawatts of Nvidia’s computing capacity.
This comprehensive commitment was never completed. Instead, Nvidia participated in OpenAI’s latest $110 billion fundraising campaign with a $30 billion investment. The round, which also includes backers such as Amazon and SoftBank, values the ChatGPT maker at $840 billion and is… It is expected to bring in additional investors.
Anthropy is worth $380 billion
Led by Dario Amodei, Anthropic has positioned itself as a leading player in enterprise AI and a direct competitor to OpenAI. The company was recently valued at $380 billion after raising $30 billion, a round that included part of Nvidia’s previously announced commitment to invest up to $10 billion.
In exchange, Anthropic plans to buy up to 1 gigawatt of Nvidia GPU capacity. “This is a dream come true for us,” Jensen Huang said in November. “We have admired the work of Anthropic and Dario for a long time.”
xAI is worth $250 billion
Nvidia’s relationships with Elon Musk’s XAI extend to investment, hardware supply and joint infrastructure projects. The two companies are collaborating on a planned 500 MW data center in Saudi Arabia alongside Homin.
Nvidia first invested in xAI’s $6 billion Series C in 2024 and later joined its $20 billion Series E in January, shortly before SpaceX acquired xAI. “The only regret is that I didn’t give him more money,” Huang told CNBC last October. “Almost everything Elon is a part of, you really want to be a part of it too.”
Secure superintelligence, worth $32 billion
Safe Superintelligence, founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, has kept its research largely secret, focusing on advanced AI rather than consumer products. Nvidia joined a $2 billion funding round last April.
Huang has long praised Sutskever’s role in co-developing AlexNet, describing him as one of the figures behind the “big bang of deep learning” during his 2024 commencement address at Caltech.
Anysphere is valued at $29.3 billion
Nvidia is an investor in Anysphere and a heavy user of its pointer encoder. About 30,000 Nvidia engineers rely on the product, known as AI-powered “biometric coding,” which the company says has tripled internal coding production.
The pointer is “Incredibly useful,Huang said in an interview with CNBC, calling it his “favorite enterprise AI service.” Nvidia Anysphere supported $2.3 billion Series D last fall.
$12 billion Thinking Machines Laboratory
It was founded by Mira Moratti, former CTO of OpenAI, at Thinking Machines Lab It raised $2 billion in a seed round with backing from Nvidia. Moratti has recruited talent from Google, Meta, Mistral AI, and OpenAI, and the company has launched tools that allow developers to fine-tune models for specialized tasks.
However, recent reports indicate internal tensions with several employees Departure to OpenAI.
Mistral Artificial Intelligence, valued at $13.8 billion
Nvidia recently joined Mistral’s $2 billion Series C last September, adding to previous investments in 2023 and 2024. The Paris-based startup aims to build a European alternative to American leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Its partnership with Nvidia has helped expand the range of multilingual and multimedia models. “extremely meaningful,The collaboration allows Mistral to “go faster and provide better services,” CEO Arthur Mensch told CNBC.
Crusoe is worth $10 billion
Crusoe stands out as a key infrastructure partner for OpenAI’s Stargate project. Nvidia has backed Crusoe’s $600 million Series D in 2024 and a $1.4 billion Series E in 2025, strengthening its position in AI data center building.
Artificial Intelligence Reflection, $8 billion
In the wake of the rise of Chinese company DeepSeek, New York-based Reflection AI is promoting itself as a Western counterpart focused on advanced, cost-effective models. Nvidia wrote the company’s largest Series B check at $2 billion last October, contributing $800 million.
Inflection AI, valued at $4 billion
Co-founded by Reid Hoffman and Mustafa Suleiman, Inflection AI launched in 2023 with its chatbot Pi and quickly raised $1.3 billion in a round led by Nvidia.
In 2024, Microsoft paid $650 million to license Inflection’s models and hired much of its team, including Soliman, who now leads Microsoft’s consumer AI division.
