Nvidia's Huang pledges $1.16B to UK startups in London

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced $1.16 billion in funding for five U.K. startups Wednesday night at an event in a converted church in West London. The appearance was part of a European tour ahead of Nvidia's GTC event in Berlin.

"We're not your largest investor, but we are your best investor," Huang told the crowd of politicians, investors, tech executives and journalists. Pointing at founders, he said, "I'm gonna invest in you, I'm gonna invest in you."

The five named startups are biotechs Prima Mente and Boltz, project delivery platform Foresight, algorithm discovery startup Hiverge and quantum company Riverlane. Nvidia said others it is not naming will also receive funding.

Earlier, Huang sought out Nscale CEO Josh Payne in the crowd, telling him, "last year you were zero." He said Nscale could be the most valuable British company in a decade. "We invested in you, I attracted a whole bunch of investors to you," Huang said.

Huang emerged about 40 minutes late to a media huddle and spoke for nearly an hour. He told reporters he had a whiskey with Andy Burnham and would meet German Chancellor Friedrich Merz "in a couple of days."

He was bullish on Europe's AI prospects, saying: "If you tell an entrepreneur there's one in a million chance they can succeed, that entrepreneur says, 'So you're telling me there's a chance?' But in the UK, somehow there's 999,000... reasons to fail."

Nvidia has also taken stakes in French startups and has funded OpenAI, Anthropic and Intel as part of a push to build holdings across the AI stack.