Nubank vs NVIDIA: Founders, CEOs and History
Nubank was founded in 2013 by David Vélez Osorno, Cristina Helena Zingaretti Junqueira, Edward Wible and is led by David Vélez. NVIDIA was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, Curtis Priem and is led by Jensen Huang.
Company facts
Founders
Nubank
David Vélez Osorno
David Vélez was born in Medellín, Colombia, studied engineering and earned an MBA at Stanford, and worked at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital before founding Nubank in 2013.
Cristina Helena Zingaretti Junqueira
Cristina Junqueira co-founded Nubank in 2013 and helped design its early credit card and customer-service model. After the 2021 IPO she became one of Brazil's few self-made female billionaires.
Edward Wible
Edward Wible co-founded Nubank in 2013 and served as its first CTO, choosing a cloud-based stack built largely in the Clojure language and the Datomic database. That architecture let Nubank add products and markets without a legacy core banking system.
NVIDIA
Jensen Huang
Nvidia possesses a gritty, prescient founding story, rooted entirely in a specific, technical conversation at a well-known American diner, and driven by a CEO who possessed an unshakable conviction in an unproven computational theory.
Chris Malachowsky
Chris Malachowsky co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and became a central figure in the company's technical foundation.
Curtis Priem
Curtis Priem co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and served as one of the company's original architects.
CEOs and their tenures
Nubank
- David Vélez Osorno2013–present
Founder, Chairman, and CEO
Vélez founded Nubank in 2013, raised capital from Sequoia and Kaszek, took the company public on the NYSE in December 2021 and led it to its first annual profit in 2023 and a $1 billion quarterly profit in Q2 2026.
Source - Cristina Junqueira2013–present
Co-Founder; CEO, Nu US
Co-founded Nubank in 2013 and shaped its early card product and customer-service culture, then took charge of the US expansion.
Source
NVIDIA
- Jensen Huang1993–present
CEO
Huang has been CEO for more than 33 years, which makes him one of the longest-serving founder-CEOs in the industry. Under him NVIDIA bet early on CUDA and deep learning, bought Mellanox for networking, and moved to a yearly architecture cadence.
Source - Chris Malachowsky1993–2024
Co-Founder
Chris Malachowsky co-founded Nvidia in 1993. As Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations, he played a critical role in developing the early graphics processing architecture and establishing Nvidia's robust engineering supply chain.
Source - Colette Kress2013–present
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
She has been CFO through NVIDIA's growth from about $4B of annual revenue to $215.9B in FY2026, and she leads its quarterly earnings communication with investors.
Source
Timeline: Nubank and NVIDIA side by side
1993NVIDIA
Founding in Santa Clara
Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem founded NVIDIA on April 5, 1993, with a focus on 3D graphics for gaming and multimedia. The founding set the company on a parallel-processing path long before AI infrastructure became the main market.
1999NVIDIA
GPU Category Defined
NVIDIA introduced the graphics processing unit concept in 1999. The milestone mattered because it framed graphics hardware as a specialized processor, a technical idea that later carried into accelerated computing and AI workloads.
2006NVIDIA
CUDA Opens GPUs to General Computing
CUDA opened GPU parallel processing to scientists, researchers, and developers outside graphics. It became the software foundation that made NVIDIA hardware useful for machine learning, simulation, and other compute-heavy workloads.
2012NVIDIA
AlexNet Shows GPU Value for Deep Learning
The AlexNet breakthrough used NVIDIA GPUs to win the ImageNet competition. The event helped convince researchers and engineers that GPUs could accelerate neural-network training at a scale CPUs could not match.
2013Nubank
Nubank founded in So Paulo
David Vélez, Cristina Junqueira, and Edward Wible founded Nubank in a suburban house in So Paulo, Brazil, with the mission to fight complexity and democratize financial services in Latin America.
2014Nubank
Launch of the purple credit card
Nubank launched its first product a no-annual-fee credit card managed entirely through a smartphone app on April 1, 2014.
2016NVIDIA
DGX-1 AI Supercomputer
Nvidia introduced the DGX-1 deep-learning supercomputer in 2016, its first system built specifically for artificial intelligence.
2017Nubank
Launch of digital account (NuConta)
Nubank launched its digital account product, allowing customers to receive salaries, make transfers, and pay bills without fees.
2018NVIDIA
RTX Brings Real-Time Ray Tracing to Graphics
NVIDIA RTX brought real-time ray tracing into the company's graphics roadmap. The product line kept gaming and professional visualization tied to AI-enhanced rendering while Data Center was becoming more important.
2019Nubank
Expansion to Mexico
Nubank launched operations in Mexico, beginning with credit cards and later expanding to digital accounts. Mexico would become the company's second-largest market, reaching 10 million customers by 2024.
2020Nubank
Launch of NuInvest and expansion to Colombia
Nubank launched NuInvest, a zero-fee brokerage platform for stocks and ETFs, and expanded operations to Colombia with the Cuenta Nu digital account. The company also reached 30 million customers globally.
2020NVIDIA
Mellanox Acquisition Adds Networking
NVIDIA completed the Mellanox acquisition for about $7 billion. The deal mattered because large AI and high-performance-computing clusters depend on fast networking between accelerators, not only on individual GPU speed.
2021Nubank
IPO on the New York Stock Exchange
Nubank completed its IPO on December 9, 2021, raising $2.6 billion at $9 per share and achieving a valuation of approximately $41-45 billion. The IPO made co-founder Cristina Junqueira one of only two self-made female billionaires in Brazil.
2022Nubank
Acquisition of Olivia AI and first annual profitability path
Nubank acquired Olivia AI, an American startup providing AI-powered financial management services, to strengthen its data and personalization capabilities. The company also reduced losses significantly as it moved toward profitability.
2022NVIDIA
Arm Acquisition Terminated
NVIDIA and SoftBank terminated the proposed Arm acquisition because of significant regulatory challenges. The failed deal showed how closely governments watch control points in semiconductor architecture.
2022NVIDIA
Hopper H100 Announced
Nvidia announced the Hopper-architecture H100 data-center GPU in March 2022.
2023Nubank
First annual net profit and 85 million customers
Nubank reported its first annual net profit of $1.03 billion in FY2023, with revenue of $8.03 billion. The company reached 85 million customers and demonstrated that its digital-only model could generate sustainable profitability.
2023NVIDIA
Grace CPU Enters Data Center Roadmap
NVIDIA introduced its first data-center CPU, Grace, for large-scale AI and high-performance computing. The milestone expanded the platform from GPUs and networking into CPU-GPU system design.
2024Nubank
Record revenue and 114 million customers
Nubank reported FY2024 revenue of $11.52 billion and net income of $1.97 billion, crossed 100 million customers in May 2024, acquired AI startup Hyperplane, and invested $150 million in South Africa's Tyme Group as part of its $250 million Series D.
2024NVIDIA
Blackwell Architecture Launched
NVIDIA launched Blackwell as a data-center-scale architecture combining GPUs, CPUs, DPUs, interconnects, switch chips, systems, and networking adapters. The architecture became central to FY2026 Data Center demand.
2025Nubank
131 million customers and ARPAC of $15
Nubank added about 17 million customers in 2025, ending the year with 131 million, while quarterly ARPAC reached about $15. FY2025 IFRS revenue was $15.77 billion and net income was $2.87 billion.
2026Nubank
Conditional US national bank charter
In January 2026, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted Nu conditional approval to establish a national bank, with Cristina Junqueira leading the US business.
2026Nubank
First $1 billion quarter and Mexican bank launch
Nu reported Q2 2026 net income of $1.061 billion on gross revenue of $5.88 billion and 139 million customers. In August 2026 it launched its bank in Mexico with 16 million customers.
2026Nubank
US product launch
On September 10, 2026, Nubank launched US products in Miami, including a credit card, high-yield savings and remittances, through sponsor bank Lead Bank while its own charter is pending.
2026NVIDIA
$215.9B FY2026 Revenue
NVIDIA reported $215.9 billion of FY2026 revenue, $193.7 billion of Data Center revenue, and $120.1 billion of net income. The result showed how far AI infrastructure had moved the company beyond its original PC graphics market.
Acquisitions
Nubank
- Hyperplane2024Undisclosed
- Olivia AI2022Undisclosed
- Spin Pay2021Undisclosed
- Easynvest2020Undisclosed
NVIDIA
- Groq (technology license and team)2025Undisclosed
- Run:ai2024$700M
- Excelero2022Undisclosed
- Mellanox Technologies2020$6.9B
- Cumulus Networks2020Undisclosed
- Icera2011$367M
Questions about Nubank vs NVIDIA
Who is the CEO of Nu Holdings Ltd. and NVIDIA Corporation?
Nu Holdings Ltd. is led by David Vélez and NVIDIA Corporation is led by Jensen Huang. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was Nu Holdings Ltd. founded vs NVIDIA Corporation?
NVIDIA Corporation was founded in 1993 — 20 years before Nu Holdings Ltd., which was founded in 2013. NVIDIA Corporation's longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Nu Holdings Ltd..
How many employees does Nu Holdings Ltd. have compared to NVIDIA Corporation?
Nu Holdings Ltd. employs approximately 10,027 people, while NVIDIA Corporation employs approximately 42,000. NVIDIA Corporation has the larger workforce at 42,000 employees, compared to Nu Holdings Ltd.'s 10,027. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are Nu Holdings Ltd. and NVIDIA Corporation headquartered?
Nu Holdings Ltd. is headquartered in Brazil and NVIDIA Corporation is headquartered in United States. Their different home markets mean they may face different regulatory frameworks, tax regimes, and currency exposure.
Who founded Nu Holdings Ltd. and NVIDIA Corporation?
Nu Holdings Ltd. was founded by David Vélez Osorno, Cristina Helena Zingaretti Junqueira, Edward Wible. NVIDIA Corporation was founded by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, Curtis Priem.
Which company has a longer operating history — Nu Holdings Ltd. or NVIDIA Corporation?
NVIDIA Corporation has been operating for approximately 33 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Nu Holdings Ltd. has been in operation for around 13 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Nubank vs NVIDIA overview