Nvidia adds 6 AI startups to its venture investment portfolio

When Nvidia makes investments in AI startups, it’s probably a good idea to sit up and take note: The GPU maker has essentially enabled modern AI in many ways, and so it’s probably seen the gamut of potential applications of its technology over the years, and should know better than most what’s likely to work out and what isn’t. Six new companies have garnered not only attention, but funding from Nvidia, via its GPU Ventures investment arm.

These include companies from all over the world, with various business and industry focuses, including retail analytics, data mining, autonomous vehicle development, voice-powered interfaces, weather forecasting and medical imagery. The diversity of different uses is probably at least partially strategic, since it does a good job of showing off the great range Nvidia’s technology has in terms of potential applications in this growing field.

Nvidia also has a new website dedicated to GPU Ventures, including a complete list of its current portfolio, and a record of previous investments that have since had successful exists.

Here’s the new list of companies joining the GPU Ventures ranks. Optimus Ride is a company with promising technical talent that should be revealing more about its product soon, and SoundHound’s AI pivot is an interesting twist in that startup’s relatively storied history:

  • ABEJA – Tokyo-based startup focused on AI-powered retail analytics systems
  • Datalogue –  New York AI data-mining platform developed out of Cornell University
  • Optimus Ride – MIT spinoff developing fully autonomous  vehicles
  • SoundHound – Silicon Valley startup building voice-enabled AI solutions
  • TempoQuest — Boulder, Colo.-based startup doing GPU-accelerated weather forecasting
  • Zebra Medical – Israeli-based startup using AI to read medical images