Nvidia’s $53 Billion Investment Spree On AI Startups

Nvidia invested roughly $53 billion across 170 deals spanning the entire AI ecosystem, according to PitchBook data. In 2025 alone, the company participated in nearly 67 venture rounds, up from 54 in 2024 and just 12 in 2022. Its formal venture arm, NVentures, completed 30 deals in 2025.

The recipients read like a directory of every layer in the AI stack. Model builders: OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, xAI, Cohere, Thinking Machines Lab. Infrastructure providers: CoreWeave, Nscale, Nebius. Autonomous driving: Wayve. Robotics: Figure AI. Chip design tools: Synopsys, where Nvidia took a $2 billion equity stake in December. Even quantum computing (Quantinuum) and nuclear fusion companies made the list.

Bears look at this and see a scheme. Short sellers Jim Chanos and Michael Burry have compared Nvidia’s investing to the vendor financing that destroyed Lucent during the dot-com bust, where the telecom equipment maker lent money to customers who used it to buy Lucent gear. When the bubble popped, those customers defaulted and Lucent’s revenue evaporated. Nvidia pushed back with a seven-page memo to Wall Street analysts in November, arguing that its…