In 2024, NVIDIA significantly increased its efforts in venture capital, investing as much as $1 billion and participating in 50 different funding rounds and several acquisitions. This figure shows a remarkable increase compared to $872 million and 39 funding rounds in 2023.
After earning $9 billion from AI chip sales, NVIDIA is focusing its resources on "core AI" companies that require substantial computing power, many of which are also NVIDIA's customers.
Among the investment list for 2024, several well-known companies are included, such as Elon Musk's xAI, prominent AI companies like OpenAI, Cohere, Mistral, and the AI search company Perplexity. In addition to investments, NVIDIA has also undertaken its largest acquisition activities in years, acquiring more companies than in the past four years combined, including the Israeli AI workload management platform Run:ai.
However, NVIDIA's investment surge has attracted the attention of regulators. Former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Bill Kovacic stated that competition regulators are very sensitive to whether such large-scale investments by a "dominant firm" like NVIDIA would promote market exclusivity.
In response, NVIDIA stated that these funds come with no strings attached, and the company's goal is to "expand our ecosystem, support outstanding companies, and enhance our platform," while emphasizing that companies should "freely make independent technological choices." According to data, NVIDIA's investment strategy has brought substantial growth to some companies in its portfolio. For instance, AI cloud computing provider CoreWeave received a $100 million investment from NVIDIA in early 2023 and is now preparing to go public with a valuation of up to $35 billion, a significant increase from about $7 billion last year.
Meanwhile, some of NVIDIA's major clients are also busy. Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are developing their own custom chips to reduce reliance on NVIDIA's graphics processors. Nevertheless, NVIDIA's main competitor, AMD, currently holds a small market share.
Key Points:
💰 NVIDIA's investment in 2024 reaches $1 billion, participating in 50 funding rounds, significantly higher than in 2023.
🤖 The company mainly focuses on core AI, acquiring several related businesses, including Run:ai.
🔍 Regulators express concerns about NVIDIA's market dominance and investment activities, while NVIDIA emphasizes that its funds come with no conditions.
