Nvidia weighs deeper investment in Reflection AI or acquisition, FT says

Oct 10 (Reuters) - Nvidia is reportedly discussing either increasing its stake in open-source startup Reflection AI or buying the company outright, according to the Financial Times on Saturday, which cited individuals with direct knowledge of the talks.

The FT said negotiations remain at an early phase, and an eventual transaction could be structured in several ways. One possibility is an acqui-hire, under which Nvidia would bring on employees and license technology instead of completing a full takeover, a route that might help it sidestep a prolonged regulatory review.

Citing multiple people familiar with the situation, the report said a deal could be finalized in the next few weeks, though it also cautioned that the talks may still break down.

Reuters said it was unable to independently confirm the report right away. Nvidia and Reflection did not immediately provide comment when contacted outside normal business hours.

According to the FT, Nvidia is already a significant financial backer and strategic investor in Reflection AI, having put $800 million into the startup.

Reflection was established in 2024 by Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou, former researchers at DeepMind. The company builds tools designed to automate software development, an area of AI that is expanding rapidly.

Reflection CEO Laskin told CNBC in April that the Nvidia-backed company was in the process of raising new capital at a pre-money valuation of $25 billion.

On Monday, the company introduced Beam, its first open-weight model, as it looks to compete in coding and agentic tasks against lower-cost Chinese models including DeepSeek and Kimi.