Losing the bid for OpenRouter, Nvidia pushes forward with multiple large-scale investments in the AI sector.

A person familiar with the negotiations said Nvidia executives expressed acquisition interest to OpenRouter's liaison team and were prepared to make a generous offer, but needed more time to evaluate the deal before formally bidding. OpenRouter's founder was unwilling to wait. In the end, Nvidia did not issue a formal acquisition offer, and Stripe acquired OpenRouter with an $8 billion bid. Nvidia's deal team quickly pivoted to other acquisition targets. Over the next two months, Nvidia finalized various deals worth more than $140 billion in total, including a $105 billion credit guarantee. As of the end of July, Nvidia held nearly $100 billion in equity investments, along with $25 billion in future investment commitments, with more deals potentially to come. A person familiar with the matter revealed that previously undisclosed information shows Nvidia has discussed an additional $1 billion investment in humanoid robotics company Figure. Figure's pre-money valuation for this round is about $38 billion, and the company is in the midst of a new funding round. People familiar with the matter said Nvidia may also acquire startups to help develop its in-house Nemotron open-source large model, while also positioning itself in other AI application tracks. Nvidia agreed to pay $6 billion to obtain software licensing from Poolside and absorb its team, partly to advance the Nemotron project. The Poolside team launched the Laguna open-weight AI model this year.