Nvidia drops $374M to become its own Bay Area landlord – The San Francisco Standard
Nvidia, the chipmaker whose market value has ballooned to over $2.3 trillion as a result of the artificial intelligence boom, just dropped a nine-figure sum to acquire a majority of its Santa Clara headquarters, which it has occupied since 1998.
According to documents filed with the county, Nvidia paid just over $374 million to its now-former landlord, Preylock Holdings, a Los Angeles asset management company, for six parcels of land with eight buildings and two parking structures.
Earlier this year, Preylock had quietly auctioned the properties for sale after receiving an unsolicited bid from a foreign buyer. Steven Golubchik, executive vice chairman at real estate firm Newmark, whose team represented the seller in the deal, declined to comment.
According to property records, Preylock, which also did not respond to a request for comment, initially purchased the campus from San Francisco-based DivcoWest in 2017 for $240 million.
Representatives from Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment. But its latest real estate deal indicates the company is ready to join its other blue-chip tech peers, like Apple and Google, in owning its headquarters rather than having to be beholden to any landlord.
Alongside ownership of the existing properties, the deal also comes with the possession of roughly 2 million square feet of future development rights, giving the growing chipmaker ample opportunity to continue expanding its home base.
Nvidia, which has seen its valuation skyrocket in recent years as a result of its role in manufacturing chips that are helping to drive the artificial intelligence revolution, is the sole tenant on the property and has been aggressively expanding its office footprint in the area.
Between 2018 and 2022, Nvidia built and opened two nearby office buildings, totaling over 1.2 million square feet. Those buildings, named Voyager and Endeavor (both references to Star Trek spaceships), were developed and owned by Nvidia and were not part of this recent sale.