Nvidia is investing in five UK startups — Boltz, Foresight, Hiverge, Prima Mente and Riverlane — taking minority stakes on undisclosed terms, hours after committing $250m of compute to UK AI safety and research.
The new positions were unveiled by chief executive Jensen Huang at an event in London on Wednesday evening. They add to a UK portfolio that already includes Basecamp Research, Ineffable Intelligence, Synthesia and Wayve.
The five companies
The batch spans the AI stack rather than a single sector. Boltz works on AI-driven drug discovery, while Prima Mente is building AI models for biology. Hiverge applies AI to logistics planning, and Foresight builds tools to predict infrastructure needs.
Riverlane, the Cambridge quantum error-correction company, is the most established name in the group and the only one outside applied AI. Its inclusion extends Nvidia's interest in quantum computing, where the chipmaker has been positioning its GPUs as the classical layer that sits alongside quantum hardware.
Deal terms
Nvidia is understood to be taking a minority stake in each company. Cheque sizes, valuations and whether the investments form part of wider funding rounds were not disclosed. It was also not disclosed whether the stakes come from Nvidia's corporate balance sheet or through its NVentures venture arm.
For the founders involved, the strategic value is likely to outweigh the dollar amount. A strategic investment from Nvidia typically brings preferential access to hardware, engineering support and a signal to later-stage investors, but it also places a corporate on the cap table of companies that may later need to remain neutral between chip suppliers.
A European spending spree
The UK announcements came hours after Nvidia disclosed stakes in four French companies: Doctolib, Entalpic, Genesis AI and Pigment. Earlier the same day, Nvidia committed a $250m compute donation to UK AI safety and research — a move that drew criticism in some quarters over the UK's growing dependence on a single foreign supplier.
The investments build on the multibillion-dollar commitment to the UK AI startup ecosystem that Nvidia announced in September 2025.
Speaking outside the London event, Huang said the UK was "phenomenally well positioned" because of its intellectual capital, and argued that Western governments, including the UK, should keep talking to Chinese AI researchers.
What's next
With nine disclosed UK positions, Nvidia is now among the most active corporate investors in British AI. Any formal round announcements from the five companies would be the first chance to see how the stakes were priced and how much of each cap table Nvidia now holds.
Original source: Tech.eu — https://tech.eu/2026/10/15/nvidia-bets-on-five-uk-startups/ (also reported by Sifted)
