Nvidia was in 1 in 11 startup rounds over $100M last year

Evidence that large VC rounds are getting very concentrated on AI (specifically the kind where you need to buy lots of NVIDIA gear).

Is this leaving good companies unfunded because they're not sufficiently "AI"?

Before anyone screams "circular financing", it really isn't.

It's almost certainly about making sure that these startups use Nvidia stack.

Hey all, I run a funding-data API and I pulled every venture round of $100M or more from Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 that named its investors, we have 903 in total for this group.

And we found that Nvidia (or its venture arm) was in 79 of them. Sequoia was in 75 and a16z in 73. Nvidia on its own beat Lightspeed, General Catalyst and Accel.

Two other things that kinda surprised me was that counting rounds and counting dollars give different leaders. So the average round Fidelity joined was $7.7B, against $3.5B for Sequoia and 38% of these rounds had a corporate investor, up from 35% the year before.

The obvious question is how much of this is Nvidia funding demand for its own chips. I'd like to hear from people who've been on either side of one of these rounds.

For what was until a few days ago the largest public company in the US, that doesn't sound unusual?

Looks like Jensen Huang has been making the rounds...

Bear with me.... Leverage and Insurance. Leverage against whom? US govt.

Maybe VCs and Private Equity funds represents what is essentially oligarchs. They are oligarchs as institutions. Everyone knows this already. US has certain liking to captialism as long as it is represented trough institutions and not individuals. Controversial I know, but standard oil, billy boy gates and monopoly trials, musk and spacex being public companies. It is just America.

So, NVIDIA figured out an interesting play. NVIDIA is playing a risky game where US govt can anytime say "fuck you, I hate you now". But if they embroil themselves in enough foundational businesses across america saying fuck you to them is difficult. Startups are " think of the children" corporate America.

They have become part of the oligarch class, they have invested where politicians childrens are working or lets be clear founded startups. This is not curricular economy, it is nvidia buying insurance. If they were read blooded America it would have been leverage, but this is insurance. Saying fuck you to them is progressively getting harder.

Any way my legs are frozen that is enough conspiracy theories I can write from the stall.