Jensen Huang's departure from Nvidia leaves a funding gap for AI startups, VCs and founders say

Jensen Huang has stepped down as Nvidia CEO after 33 years, and investors say his exit removes the startup ecosystem's largest backer. Nvidia participated in 105 funding rounds this year, often as the lead investor, and backed CoreWeave, Crusoe, Hugging Face, Mistral AI, Lambda and Black Forest Labs. Interim CEO Colette Kress is expected to be more conservative on startup investments, which VCs say could lower valuations and slow dealmaking, though few expect it to halt the broader AI boom.