Nvidia has paid 900 million for one

Nvidia has signed a new talent from Ia. The news is not that, but the way in which he has signed it: to achieve “capture it” he has made an investment of more than 900 million dollars in the company he directed. It is a new hiring modality that allows “stealing talent” without current legislation being able to do much.

What happened. According to CNBC dataNvidia has invested more than 900 million dollars in the AI ​​Hardware Startup Contractwhich manufactures connectivity components for AI servers. As part of that agreement, Nvidia has signed his CEO, Rochan Sancar, who will begin to work directly for the firm led by Jensen Huang.

Clusters to power. Contractivity connectivity solutions – founded in 2019 – allow the company to connect more than 100,000 GPUS to put them to work within AI. These types of solutions can help Nvidia offer integrated systems that use their chips. Or what is the same: all this points to new “supernodos” of computing with thousands of Nvidia chips ready to be installed in large data centers. The firm already its GB200 NVL72 marketsfor example, but this agreement allows you to go more in that field.

They already knew each other. In 2023 Nvidia already participated in a round of investment in which Undergraduate raised 125 million dollars. In 2024 another new 115 million round He made companies such as ARM, Samsung or Cisco participate. According to Pitchbook, after this round the contribute assessment was 600 million dollars: the investment made by NVIDIA is enormous considering that data.

Big Tech invest fortunes to sign talent. This tactic is the same that used goal in June, when invested 14.3 billion dollars In the startup Scale AI and signed his new tsar of the Superintelligence Division, Alexandr Wang. Google did the same in July by announcing an agreement with Windsurf: would invest 2.4 billion dollars in itand incidentally, he would sign his CEO, Varun Mohan. Microsoft did the same With Inflection and Mustafa Suleyman In July 2024, and Amazon also He moved file At that time when signing managers of the STARTUP of the ADEPT.

One way to avoid legal problems. Traditionally, these types of operations were carried out through the well -known “Acquihires”. A large company bought another and in many cases it did to get talent, not because of the product or service offered by the “victim.” These agreements have ended up suffering remarkable legal scrutiny, which has made large companies go to other forms of talent. These “pseudoinversiones” are nothing more than a mechanism to achieve that talent without being so exposed – at least, for the moment – to legal scrutiny.

And a distortion of the startup market. These operations, however, pose an important problem for the global startup panorama. If a large company can go to methods like this to sign talent, change the dynamics and strategies of startup themselves. After the investment in Underground, the company should continue to be separated, but to what extent is this a undercover acquisition?

More elements for the bubble of the AI. There is also a threat to the risk capital market. Big Tech are using their huge cash reserves to inflate startup assessments such as getting out. Not because of its market potential, but as a “hiring premium” covered by its founders. This can create a bubble and change the strategy of risk capital investors, which can now value talent more than long -term business viability.

Image | Hillel Steinberg

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