Ex-Nvidia leaders launch EverGreen to back AI startups with 30,000 alumni

Former Nvidia leaders have built EverGreen, a 30,000-member alumni network investing in and advising AI startups.

Former Nvidia executives have launched EverGreen, an alumni network of roughly 30,000 members that invests in and advises AI startups, extending the chipmaker's influence beyond its own walls.

"It's really hard to go from a job like that, doing amazing things, and you just stop, and you're unemployed, looking at avocados at Safeway," Greg Estes, former vice president of corporate marketing and developer programs at Nvidia and an EverGreen founding partner, said.

EverGreen spun out of a broader Nvidia alumni community spanning LinkedIn groups, email lists and live events. The network has already invested in security startup Protopia AI, cofounded by former Nvidia researcher Eiman Ebrahimi, and orbital computing company Sophia Space, which received a mention during CEO Jensen Huang's GTC keynote in March.

Unlike a traditional venture capital fund, EverGreen evaluates startups case by case and invites members to invest rather than managing a single pool of funds. The network focuses on companies that work with Nvidia and are not direct competitors, spanning infrastructure, developer tools and robotics.

A Network Built on Nvidia's Ecosystem

The network is named for the fact that many former employees remain "bleeding green" long after they leave, Jeff Brown, a former Nvidia general manager and EverGreen founding partner, said. Brown left the company years before the AI boom to focus on startup advisory and venture investing. EverGreen's founding partners also include former Nvidia product leaders Devang Sachdev and Vishal Lulla. The community comprises a team of strategic advisors and hundreds of active investors, Brown said, and the partners are building it alongside their other professional pursuits.

Similar alumni networks have emerged around other technology giants, including Google's Xoogler Community and the Microsoft Alumni Network. Within Nvidia's network, a subset began discussing how they could pay forward their knowledge to the next generation of AI founders. "The value of EverGreen is the network. It's not our money," Estes said.

Estes previously led Nvidia's Inception startup program, which provides more than 40,000 companies with cloud credits and access to Nvidia technology. He said EverGreen enables him to stay connected to the startup ecosystem he spent years cultivating. Founders do not need to be Nvidia alumni to join, though that was an early goal, Estes said. Nvidia employees tend not to leave, he added, pushing back against the idea that they are retiring early after striking it rich. Many, including billionaires on Huang's executive staff, are financially secure enough to retire but stay on because they enjoy the work.

"Jensen is somebody that you can learn from, no matter how many years you have," Estes said.

While EverGreen is not affiliated with Nvidia, Estes said he met with senior leaders at the company and received approval before joining. The relationship is complementary rather than competitive. "If you're on the venture side within Nvidia, we're deal flow for you," Estes said of Nvidia's NVentures investment arm, adding that EverGreen also connects startups to the company. "There was no success model if Nvidia didn't love the fact that we existed."

For investors, EverGreen represents a new channel for AI deal flow backed by deep Nvidia domain expertise. The network's case-by-case investment model allows it to deploy capital selectively across infrastructure, developer tools and robotics — sectors where Nvidia's technology stack is already entrenched. Nvidia shares face limited near-term competitive risk from the network, given EverGreen's explicit focus on non-competing companies. Instead, the alumni network could strengthen Nvidia's ecosystem moat by keeping former talent engaged in building on its platform.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.