Nvidia to Take Minority Stakes in Four French Tech Firms, Amounts Undisclosed

Nvidia said today it will take minority stakes in four French technology companies: Doctolib, Genesis AI, Pigment and Entalpic. Jensen Huang announced the investments in Paris, and none of the stake sizes were disclosed.

Huang said Nvidia will take a minority stake in Doctolib, which had also disclosed the stake earlier. The company’s 3.6bn euro valuation comes from an earlier funding round, so it is not the price Nvidia is paying.

According to Les Echos, Nvidia is also backing Genesis AI, a robotics-focused startup, Pigment, which makes financial-planning software, and Entalpic, a chemistry-focused startup. Huang said the aim is to “launch the artificial intelligence revolution in Europe”.

Huang also said Nvidia invested at least $8bn in Europe last year. Doctolib’s chief executive said the money will fund hiring and in-house AI models, which will run on Nvidia chips.

Nvidia shares closed at $228.52 today, up 0.97% from $226.32 yesterday, while other chip stocks fell at the open. The shares were already higher before the announcement, so the rise cannot be attributed to the stakes.

Today’s close sits 6.1% below the 52-week high of $243.37, set on the 6th of October, as the chart of the past three months shows.

For a UK trader, the point is that Nvidia is spending money on companies that use its chips, at least in Doctolib’s case, in effect backing its own customers. Without disclosed amounts, the weight of these stakes against Nvidia’s results cannot be judged.

London had closed before the announcement, so UK traders will react through US trading rather than the London session.

The next checkpoint is Nvidia’s results on the 18th of November, which will show more of how the company is deploying its cash. Whether these stakes turn into orders for its chips is a separate question that the announcement does not answer.