Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon and Alphabet invested $1 million or more in 149 startups in one year

For comparison, in 2023 these companies invested at least $131 million in startups, in 2022, $190 million, in 2021, $239 million, and in 2020, $174 million.

In 2024, global technology giants will focus on investing in companies in the field of artificial intelligence, writes Crunchbase News.

The largest deal took place in October, when OpenAI received $6.6 billion, including from Microsoft and Nvidia.

The second largest investment round was led by Alphabet, owner of Google. The company invested $5.6 billion in its subsidiary Waymo, which develops autonomous taxis.

In third place is Amazon, which in November invested $4 billion in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. The latter developed the Claude assistant, whose functionality is similar to that of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Alphabet is the leader in number of transactions in 2024, participating in 87 investment rounds. They are followed by Microsoft with 34 deals, Nvidia with 27, Amazon with 10 and Apple, which did not participate in any known round.

Crunchbase News analysts noted that Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet have free cash, strong stock market positions, and a need to compete in the AI ​​field.

At the same time, the example of Apple shows that the presence of opportunities does not always indicate the desire of companies to invest in startups, the experts concluded.