Nvidia-backed Firmus raises $505M at $5.5B valuation ahead of landmark Australian IPO

Nvidia-Backed Data Center Builder Firmus Raises $505 Million

Data center builder Firmus Technologies Pty raised $505 million in an investment round led by Coatue Management LLC, part of a global push to finance artificial intelligence infrastructure. The deal values the Australian startup at $5.5 billion, Firmus said Thursday. Nvidia Corp., the top maker of AI accelerator chips, also participated in the round. The cash will go toward rapidly deploying AI hardware based on forthcoming Nvidia computer technology in the Asia-Pacific region. Firmus, which has data center projects in Australia and Singapore, has raised $1.35 billion in the last six months, including this latest transaction. Firmus is leading an effort called Southgate, a plan to build data center capacity in Australia that runs on renewable energy, starting with a site in Tasmania. That facility will house computers based on 36,000 Nvidia accelerator chips after its first two rounds of technology deployments. The powerful processors help develop and run AI models by bombarding them with data. Nvidia, often in partnership with venture capital investors, has invested billions of dollars in AI companies. It's aiming to help cultivate an industry that has already fueled explosive sales growth and turned Nvidia into the world's most valuable business. As with the Firmus funding, Nvidia is backing companies that also buy its products. Some investors have expressed concern about the circular nature of these deals, something Nvidia has pushed back on. Coatue, which has more than $70 billion in assets under management, has made its own push into AI technology. The New York-based investment firm has backed computing infrastructure as well as service providers like OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. Firmus is using Vera Rubin DSX, a design provided by Nvidia for building what it calls AI factories. Vera Rubin is the code name for a new generation of chips and computers that Nvidia will begin shipping in the second half of this year. The Australian effort dovetails with a push by Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang into what's called sovereign AI, the building of local data centers that allow countries and companies to keep their information within national boundaries. Huang has touted that as a key area of growth for his company's technology. Firmus said previously that the Southgate project has attracted a global hyperscaler customer -- a term used to describe the largest cloud computing companies. Blackstone Inc., the world's biggest alternative-asset manager, also has helped finance the effort.

Nvidia-backed Firmus raises $505M at $5.5B valuation ahead of ASX IPO - SiliconANGLE

Nvidia Corp.-backed Australian artificial intelligence data center company Firmus Technologies Pty. Ltd. has raised $505 million in new funding on a $5.5 billion valuation ahead of an expected initial public offering on the Australian Stock Exchange later this year. Founded in 2019, Firums develops and operates data center infrastructure designed to support AI workloads that require large-scale, high-density compute environments. Firmus is building facilities designed to accommodate clusters of graphics processing units interconnected through high-speed networking, alongside storage and cooling systems required for sustained workloads. The company's data centers are configured to align with Nvidia-based hardware and software architectures to allow customers to deploy standardized environments for model training and inference. Its power distribution and thermal management systems are designed to support continuous operation under high computational loads. Firums provides access to dedicated compute capacity through managed infrastructure environments, where deployment, configuration and ongoing operation of systems are handled within a single platform. Customers can scale workloads across multiple nodes, with support for both training and inference use cases. The operating model centers on delivering integrated infrastructure that combines compute, networking and facility management. The company is currently building a $1.37 billion flagship campus in the northern Tasmanian town of Launceston. The data center will be designed to be environmentally friendly from the get-go, with water recycling, batteries and power from Tasmania's hydroelectric dams. The Tasmanian site is also expected to host 36,000 of Nvidia Corp.'s top-end GB300 chips. The new funding round was led by Coatue Management, with continued backing from Nvidia, which has maintained an active role as both an investor and a strategic partner. The funding will be used to expand data center capacity, including new facility development, GPU deployment and supporting power and cooling infrastructure required for large-scale AI workloads. The new funding comes after Frimus raised approximately $715 million in 2025, including a round of $327 million in November. According to the Australian Financial Review, the fundraise was the third and final raise ahead of Firmus's IPO, with sources close to the company saying that management was expected to make their maiden pitch to potential IPO investors on Tuesday. The IPO, expected in June or July, would see Firmus seeking to raise around $2 billion in additional capital. Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgans Financial Ltd. and Morgan Stanley are also reported to be introducing the IPO to potential investors via a non-deal roadshow this week. Should the IPO proceed, it will be one of the largest in Australia this decade and one of the largest of all time in the country for a tech company. Other prominent Australian tech companies that have decided to go public have tended to favor non-Australian exchanges, making Firmus a somewhat rare tech company in seeking to float in Australia.

Firmus valuation approaches $7b in fresh Nvidia investment

Artificial intelligence infrastructure start-up Firmus is expected to be valued at nearly $7 billion after the world's biggest company Nvidia doubled its investment in what's slated to be its final capital raising as a private company. Firmus was scrambling to finalise the third and final tranche of its whopper $1 billion-plus pre-IPO raising on Monday night, according to those close to the company who were not authorised to speak publicly. It includes a share sale to Nvidia and other strategic investors, and comes hours before its management make their maiden pitch to potential IPO investors in Asia on Tuesday.