Nvidia ramps up AI startup deals as market cap tops $4.6 trillion

Nvidia’s stock price has soared since the launch of ChatGPT three years ago, pushing the chipmaker’s market capitalization to $4.6 trillion. The company has used that growing fortune to significantly increase its investments in AI startups: it participated in nearly 67 venture capital deals in 2025, surpassing the 54 deals it completed in all of 2024, according to PitchBook data. Those figures exclude Nvidia’s formal corporate VC fund, NVentures, which also sharply increased its pace — PitchBook counted 30 NVentures deals this year, compared with just one in 2022. Nvidia has said its corporate investing aims to expand the AI ecosystem by backing startups it views as leaders that will define the market.

Among the largest bets: Nvidia backed OpenAI for the first time in October 2024, reportedly writing a $100 million check as part of a $6.6 billion round that valued the ChatGPT maker at $157 billion — a fraction of the $1.3 billion that lead backer Thrive invested, according to The New York Times. PitchBook data indicates Nvidia did not participate in OpenAI’s $40 billion round that closed in March, but the chipmaker announced in September it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI over time as part of a strategic infrastructure partnership. Nvidia later cautioned in its quarterly filings that the investment might not go through as planned: “There is no assurance that any investment will be completed on expected terms, if at all.”

Nvidia made its first direct investment in Anthropic in November 2025, committing up to $10 billion as part of a strategic round that also included a $5 billion check from Microsoft. In a “circular” arrangement, Anthropic committed to spending $30 billion on Microsoft Azure compute capacity and to buying Nvidia’s future Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems. Nvidia has also backed Elon Musk’s xAI, participating in its $6 billion round and, per a Bloomberg report, plans to invest up to $2 billion in the equity portion of xAI’s planned $20 billion funding round.

Why it matters

The scale of Nvidia’s investing — including circular deals where its portfolio companies commit to buying Nvidia hardware — shows how tightly its financial fortunes are now tied to the AI labs it backs.