A chipmaker was in one of every eleven $100M rounds

NVIDIA and its venture arm NVentures participated in 79 of the 903 disclosed $100M+ funding rounds between October 2025 and September 2026, placing the chipmaker ahead of every traditional venture firm except Sequoia (75) and Andreessen Horowitz (73). NVIDIA alone appeared in 65 such rounds, more than Lightspeed, General Catalyst or Accel, with deals spanning Reflection AI, Baseten, Nscale and PhysicsX. Corporate investors featured in 38% of the large rounds, up from 35% a year earlier, underscoring how strategic capital from chipmakers is reshaping late-stage dealmaking. The figures also show a split between deal count and deal size: rounds involving Fidelity averaged $7.7B versus $3.5B for those involving Sequoia, with Coatue and T. Rowe Price similarly concentrated in fewer, larger checks. The trend matters because NVIDIA's balance sheet is becoming a gatekeeper for capital-intensive AI startups, and the next test is whether its participation holds as a signal of compute access or simply reflects a broadening corporate-investor base.