TLDR
- Nvidia invested $150M in AI startup Baseten at a $5B valuation.
- The $300M round was led by IVP and Alphabet’s CapitalG.
- The deal highlights Nvidia’s focus on AI inference beyond hardware.
- NVDA shares traded lower despite strong long-term performance.
- Financial metrics show high margins, cash strength, and premium valuation.
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NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) was trading at $179.43, down 3.59% during market hours, as investors weighed a strategic venture investment alongside broader market moves.
NVIDIA Corporation, NVDA
The semiconductor leader has invested $150 million in AI inference startup Baseten as part of a $300 million funding round that values the company at $5 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the matter.
The round was led by venture capital firm IVP and Alphabet’s CapitalG, with Nvidia participating as a major backer. The investment more than doubles Baseten’s valuation and signals Nvidia’s growing interest in software platforms that sit closer to AI model deployment and inference workloads.
Why Baseten Matters to Nvidia
Baseten focuses on AI inference, the process of running trained models in production. This layer of the AI stack has become a critical battleground as enterprises seek faster, cheaper, and more reliable ways to deploy large models. By backing Baseten, Nvidia extends its influence beyond GPUs and into the infrastructure that developers use to operationalize AI.
Nvidia invested $150 million in Baseten, a startup geared to hosting and delivering AI products to customers, aka “inference” https://t.co/GpYlzcMyMw
— WSJ Tech (@WSJTech) January 20, 2026
The move fits Nvidia’s broader strategy of building a full-stack ecosystem that spans chips, networking, software frameworks, and developer tools. Inference workloads are expected to scale rapidly as AI adoption spreads across industries, making platforms like Baseten strategically valuable.
Market Reaction and Stock Context
Despite the long-term strategic logic, Nvidia shares traded lower on the day of the report. Short-term price moves have often diverged from fundamentals for NVDA, given its size and prominence in global markets.
On a performance basis, Nvidia remains far ahead of benchmarks over longer horizons. The stock is up 3.80% year to date, compared with a