Nvidia didn’t just sell the shovels during the AI gold rush. It started buying the mines.

The company deployed $18.6 billion into venture-style investments over a three-month period ending in April 2026. Nvidia’s nonmarketable equity securities surged to $42.3 billion, up from just $3.2 billion a year earlier.

Following the money

The $18.6 billion figure represents what Nvidia funneled into venture investments during its fiscal quarter. The specific recipients of most of that capital remain undisclosed, but Nvidia is targeting AI software and infrastructure companies.

One deal that has surfaced publicly: Nvidia participated in a $300 million investment round in Decart, an AI startup now valued at nearly $4 billion.

Nvidia generated $48.6 billion in free cash flow during the same quarter. That means the $18.6 billion venture spend represented roughly 38% of its free cash flow.

The strategy behind the spending

Nvidia invests in an AI startup. That startup uses the funding to buy more Nvidia GPUs. Nvidia gets both equity upside and hardware revenue. Nvidia has evolved from being a pure hardware supplier into what analysts describe as an active financier of the AI ecosystem.

What this means for investors

The $48.6 billion in quarterly free cash flow means Nvidia can sustain this level of investment spending without taking on debt, diluting shareholders, or cutting its existing R&D budget.

However, $42.3 billion in nonmarketable equity securities means Nvidia is now heavily exposed to private company valuations. These aren’t liquid assets. Nvidia is also betting overwhelmingly on the AI sector, the same sector that drives its core GPU revenue, creating concentration risk on both the hardware side and the investment portfolio side simultaneously. Additionally, the lack of transparency around where most of the $18.6 billion went raises governance questions for a public company deploying capital at this scale into undisclosed private deals.