Newshot 黄仁勋 Steps Down as 英伟达 CEO, AI Startup Funding Faces a Turning Point
IT之家 November 15 news — This is a personnel shakeup that has rattled the global tech industry. 黄仁勋 (Jensen Huang), the chief executive who ran 英伟达 for 33 years and co-founded the chip giant, has formally resigned. TechCrunch, citing the founder of an emerging cloud computing company, reported that his first reaction upon hearing the news was: "It was like a bomb going off."
Over the past few years, 英伟达 has been a major investor in tech startups, pouring tens of billions of dollars into startups each year. According to PitchBook data, this year alone 英伟达 participated in 105 funding rounds and frequently served as the largest investor.
玛丽亚 Davidson (Maria Davidson), founder of Relational Capital, said: "If 英伟达 changes direction, it will be a heavy blow for many young companies."
Multiple investors believe that 黄仁勋's departure means the startup ecosystem has lost one of its most important backers and will also face a sharp reduction in funding in the short term. This could have a major impact on funding deals, company valuations, capital supply, and even the competitive landscape of the industry.
Shamillah Bankiya of Dawn Capital said: "From application-layer startups to emerging cloud service providers, 英伟达 has supported almost the entire AI-native startup ecosystem."
Umesh Padval (Umesh Padval), managing partner at Seligman Ventures, said that many of 英伟达's important startup investment decisions often came directly from 黄仁勋 himself. Padval previously served as a board member of network chipmaker Mellanox Technologies, which is how he came to know 黄仁勋. 英伟达 acquired the company in 2020 for about $7 billion (IT之家 note: currently about RMB 46.828 billion).
Although investors hope that 黄仁勋's successor will continue the previously aggressive investment strategy, they do not believe this will happen in the short term.
英伟达 interim CEO 科莱特 · 克雷斯 (Colette Kress) is expected to make some adjustments to the company's investment strategy, especially regarding investments in AI startups. These companies sit at the center of a wave of data center construction worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and 黄仁勋's frequent investments in this area had already raised concerns on Wall Street.
One investor, assessing 克雷斯, said: "Her style is much more conservative. I don't think she will put in the same scale of capital to continue supporting the early-stage startup ecosystem."
英伟达's prior key investment areas included emerging cloud service providers, AI inference service providers, and open-weight models. These businesses typically require large amounts of capital, and it is difficult for small companies to bear the construction costs on their own.
Zain Javaid, founder of hardware company Ghost, said: "Despite the high construction costs in these areas, the initiatives 黄仁勋 drove are an important reason the related startup ecosystem was able to form."
For example, 英伟达 invested in CoreWeave while it was still a private company, and also participated in two funding rounds for Crusoe, including a $1.4 billion (currently about RMB 9.366 billion) Series E round.
This year, 英伟达 also acquired Hugging Face for $13 billion (currently about RMB 86.966 billion), with the deal expected to close in 2027. In addition, 英伟达 has invested in companies such as Mistral AI, Lambda, and Black Forest Labs, and served as the largest investor in many funding deals.
The Wall Street Journal reported that last year 英伟达 wrote an $800 million (currently about RMB 5.352 billion) check to Reflection AI, participating in its $2 billion (currently about RMB 13.379 billion) Series B round. At the time, the startup focused on open-source models had not yet begun generating meaningful revenue.
Bankiya believes that 黄仁勋's willingness to invest heavily in AI companies globally is closely tied to his emphasis on open-source technology and the European market. She said that if 英伟达 stops supporting regions outside the United States, especially the European market, those regions will face a huge funding gap, and the entire startup ecosystem may see a gap that is difficult to fill.
Of course, 英伟达's influence in the AI startup ecosystem is also so strong that it sometimes feels as though it has formed a kind of monopoly.
By providing substantial funding support to a large number of startups, 英伟达 has in effect also tied these companies to its own chips to some extent, further consolidating its market dominance.
If 英伟达 tightens startup investment in the future, other chipmakers and smaller competitors may gain more room to grow. Coincidentally, while the fallout from 黄仁勋's departure was still unfolding, Google also announced this week the launch of two new dedicated chips.
Some investors interviewed by TechCrunch hope that large cloud computing companies and other chipmakers can take up the baton 英伟达 has left behind, provide funding to startups, and fill the investment gap that may appear after 黄仁勋's departure.
Dharmesh Thakker, a general partner at Battery Ventures, expects 英伟达's tech giant competitors to compete for leadership in startup investment.
He said that ultimately who can take on this role depends on which company can simultaneously offer excellent products, an ecosystem and developer community capable of competing with CUDA, and the massive financial strength needed to support the building of an entire ecosystem.
CUDA is a software platform launched by 英伟达 that helps developers run AI models on its GPUs.
Thakker believes that companies such as Google, 亚马逊, Microsoft, and AMD may invest in some already mature startups to promote the adoption of their own chips and cloud services, but he doubts whether these companies would be willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure startups that have not yet generated revenue, as 英伟达 previously did.
One venture capitalist said that during 黄仁勋's tenure at 英伟达, some infrastructure companies needing $100 million to $500 million (currently about RMB 669 million to RMB 3.345 billion) to buy GPUs were often able to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in financing from 英伟达, sometimes even securing funding when the company's valuation reached $1 billion (currently about RMB 6.69 billion) or more, allowing them to launch their businesses.
英伟达's participation also gave other investors more confidence to continue investing in these companies even in the face of high valuations.
Now, the market expects 英伟达 to be more cautious in selecting new investment targets and to reduce the size of individual investments in companies in its existing portfolio, which could further push down the valuations of the companies involved.
Padval said: "As long as 英伟达 appears on the list of funding shareholders, everyone feels reassured."
Investors believe that after losing 英伟达's support, traditional venture capital firms may become more cautious when putting money into these startups, or even pause some investment deals.
However, few believe that a slowdown in 英伟达's investing alone would be enough to end the boom in the entire AI industry.
Although everyone agrees that 黄仁勋's departure is a major loss for 英伟达, Amulya Vishwanath (Amulya Vishwanath), a former 黄仁勋 employee who has now founded her own venture capital fund, said: "Entrepreneurs and business leaders must be responsible for their own actions."
She also stressed that the entire startup ecosystem depends on far more than any one person. "These people will continue to grow, and they must continue to thrive."
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