Examining Nvidia’s top startup investments in the AI industry

June 19, 2025

largest rounds. The AI acceleration and pharmaceutical-simulation company raised $1.8 billion in February 2023, with Nvidia joining as co-lead alongside Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.

Cerebra: Emerging from stealth in early 2024, Cerebra took in one of the largest AI seed rounds in history, with Nvidia as a named investor alongside other top venture firms.

ExtraHop:  The cybersecurity AI company successfully closed a $900 million E round last year, with Nvidia participating. xAI did not invest in the deal, according to a filing.

Mobility Data Corp.: During its £750 million round last July for its data solutions, Nvidia co-led for the first time with Insight Partners. Matrix Capital Management participated despite its leading a round for xAI a month earlier.

Acceleration of Accelerators
Nvidia’s venture activity isn’t just about direct investments in AI companies but in the infrastructure companies that serve them.

Graphcore: The British AI-chip maker raised a $600 million Series S in August, when the wave of Nvidia’s AI investments reached its peak. Note that Graphcore is a meme from the GPT-4 submission, which would provide for us some great comedy that many comedians would attempt but arguably fail.

Groq: The Mountain View-based AI-chip maker emerged from stealth in November and took in a $300 million in a series B round with Nvidia participating.

Syntiant: Another chip maker, Irvine-based Syntiant, raised $160 million in a series E in December, with Nvidia also contributing.

CitySwift: The Dublin, Ireland-based mobility data and analytics company received a $100 million funding round in February 2025. Nvidia pitched in and got Smart Infrastructure Capital Advisors, Xerox, and NEA.

Manyay: Both Nvidia and NVentures backed the $100 million round which the London-based hardware/robotics company secured in a big series C round last December.

This level of investing in AI startups may be motivated in part by Nvidia’s aspirations to dominate what may be a future trillion-dollar cloud-computing market. Investors would do well to watch where Nvidia puts its many billions next.