Nvidia-Backed Nscale Eyes $2 Billion Funding Round Just Months After Last Raise

Nvidia-Backed Nscale Is Said to Eye $2 Billion Funding Round

Deliberations are ongoing and the company could decide not to proceed with a deal, with representatives for Nscale, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan declining to comment. Data center company Nscale is in talks with investors to raise about $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, a little over three months after closing its last funding round. The artificial intelligence hyperscaler is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. on the fundraising, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. UK-based Nscale raised more than $1.5 billion across a pair of rounds in September and October, shortly after it announced partnerships with Nvidia Corp. and OpenAI. Deliberations are ongoing and the company could decide not to proceed with a deal, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn't public. Representatives for Nscale, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan declined to comment. Nscale was spun out of a crypto miner in 2024, joining a crop of so-called neoclouds that supply access to AI chips for companies that need specialized computing power. Microsoft Corp. is spending $10 billion on a data center in Portugal that it is building out with the company and a local partner, and also plans to lease capacity from Nscale in Norway and the UK. The data center firm has made a range of senior leadership hires in recent months, which some investors view as key to a potential initial public offering. NScale hired Lauren Hurwitz from Palantir Technologies Inc. this month to serve as chief operating officer. In December, it tapped longtime JPMorgan banker Alice Takhtajan as finance chief and Microsoft executive Nidhi Chappell as president of AI infrastructure. Shares of Nscale's rivals have been volatile in recent months, as investors question the pace of spending on AI infrastructure. CoreWeave Inc. went public in a $1.57 billion listing in late March, and despite having retreated from a June high of $187 per share is still trading at roughly double its $40 IPO price. Nebius Group NV, an Amsterdam-based cloud provider listed in the US, has more than tripled in the past year as investors applauded its high-profile partnerships.

AI Hyperscaler Nscale Aims to Raise $2 Billion | PYMNTS.com

Nscale did not immediately reply to PYMNTS' request for comment. Nscale CEO and Founder Josh Payne said in the Oct. 1 press release: "This commitment to participating in our pre-Series C SAFE, just days after the close of our Series B funding, represents a powerful endorsement of our vision to deliver sovereign, scalable infrastructure for the AI era." Oyvind Eriksen, president and CEO of Aker ASA, which led Nscale's Series B round, said in the Sept. 25 release: "AI is reshaping the global economy and redefining the value of renewable energy. With Nscale, we're backing infrastructure that's sovereign, scalable and purpose-built to accelerate this transformation. Nscale's full-stack, GPU-first model gives it a real edge in execution." It was reported in May that hyperscalers, or large cloud computing companies, make up more than half of the data center revenue of chipmaker Nvidia. PYMNTS reported in March that the largest hyperscalers operate data centers that span thousands to over 1 million feet and house thousands of servers that store data and run applications on behalf of their customers.