Nvidia Expands AI Startup Investments in India
▼ Summary
– Nvidia is intensifying efforts to build relationships with AI startups in India at the earliest stages, even before their formal company formation.
– This strategy includes new partnerships with early-stage venture firms like Activate and AI Grants India to identify and support promising founders.
– India is a critical market for Nvidia due to its rapidly growing pool of AI developers and startups, which represent future demand for its chips and software.
– Nvidia aims to secure long-term business by providing technical expertise early, as growing startups typically consume increasing amounts of AI computing infrastructure.
– The activity highlights intensifying global competition to court India’s AI talent, with Nvidia expanding its local ecosystem through multiple investor and program partnerships.
Nvidia is significantly deepening its engagement with India’s burgeoning artificial intelligence ecosystem by forging new partnerships aimed at connecting with founders at the very inception of their ventures. This strategic shift is designed to cultivate long-term relationships in a market that has become a critical hub for AI developer talent and startup innovation. By embedding itself earlier in the startup lifecycle, the chipmaker aims to secure future demand for its computing infrastructure as these nascent companies grow.
The latest initiative involves a collaboration with the early-stage venture firm Activate. From its debut $75 million fund, Activate plans to invest in approximately 25 to 30 AI startups, offering these portfolio companies preferential access to Nvidia’s technical resources. This move is part of a broader series of India-focused announcements, including work with the nonprofit AI Grants India to support early-stage founders and new alliances with several venture capital firms concentrating on the region.
This flurry of partnerships coincides with the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, which attracted major players like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had been scheduled to attend, a senior delegation led by executive vice president Jay Puri represented the company, engaging with local researchers, startups, and developers.
India’s rapid ascent as a source of AI developers makes it an increasingly vital market for Nvidia’s expansion efforts. By working more closely with founders at the earliest stages, the company is positioning itself to capture long-term demand as new AI-native companies scale. Aakrit Vaish, founder of Activate, noted that Nvidia’s previous engagement in India was relatively light-touch compared to its U.S. operations, but the company is now proactively seeking to build relationships much sooner in a founder’s journey.
Activate practices what Vaish terms “inception investing,” engaging with technical teams months before a company is formally established. The firm’s influential backers, including venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, Perplexity’s Aravind Srinivas, Peak XV’s Shailendra Singh, and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, highlight the prominent network being assembled around this early-stage strategy.
For Nvidia, the rationale is clear: building relationships with promising AI startups early makes it more likely those companies will standardize on Nvidia’s computing infrastructure as they expand. Vaish pointed out that scaling startups inevitably consume greater amounts of AI compute, making early technical engagement a valuable method for generating future business.
Nvidia already maintains a substantial presence in India through its Inception program, which supports over 4,000 local startups. This week’s announcements expanded that footprint further, detailing partnerships with venture firms like Accel, Peak XV, and Nexus Venture Partners to identify and fund AI ventures. The separate collaboration with AI Grants India aims to support more than 10,000 early-stage founders over the coming year.
This intensified outreach builds upon previous moves, such as Nvidia joining the India Deep Tech Alliance in late 2025, a consortium of U.S. and Indian investors providing strategic guidance to emerging startups. According to Vaish, the Activate partnership is intended to add a curated, high-touch layer on top of Nvidia’s broad-based Inception program, acting as an early filter to connect the most promising technical teams directly with engineering expertise.
The stepped-up activity underscores the fierce competition among global technology giants to win over AI developers and startups in India, which stands as one of the world’s fastest-growing pools of technical talent outside the United States.
(Source: TechCrunch)
