(Bloomberg) -- Investors are so taken with Nvidia Corp.’s prospects that they are willing to follow the chipmaker’s lead when it comes to investing in smaller companies.

Shares of several companies rallied this week after Nvidia disclosed owning stakes in them. One, Nano-X Imaging Ltd., saw its shares double over two days, adding some $400 million in market value to the medical-devices maker. 

How Nvidia came to hold about $380,000 worth of its shares, though, isn’t what most investors might expect. Back in 2017, Nvidia reported a stake in Zebra Medical, an Israeli-based startup focused on using artificial intelligence to read medical images. Four years later, Nano-X acquired Zebra in an all-stock deal. That resulted in Nvidia’s receiving shares in Nano-X in return for its Zebra stake.

“The market is presuming that Nvidia consciously purchased” the stake in Nano-X, John Hempton, chief investment officer at Bronte Capital Management, wrote in a post on Substack Thursday. “Nvidia did not consciously choose to buy Nano-X stock.”

Nano-X shares lost as much as 9.5% in postmarket trading on Friday, after closing 36% higher.

The chipmaker made the disclosures in a 13-F regulatory filing, required for institutional investors whose portfolios exceed $100 million. Nvidia likely crossed that threshold at the end of last year after a company it owns a stake in, Arm Holdings Plc, went public. 

Nvidia declined to comment on its Nano-X stake when contacted by Bloomberg News. 

--With assistance from Cristin Flanagan.

(Adds share move in fifth paragraph.)

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