Nscale, a British AI infrastructure company founded in 2024, is seeking about $3.5 billion in financing ahead of a planned IPO as soon as this month, according to TechCrunch and Reuters.
The financing splits into two pieces: up to $1.5 billion in convertible notes led by hedge fund Third Point, and roughly $2 billion in investment from Nvidia, with Goldman Sachs arranging the round, Reuters reported. The convertible notes carry a double-digit discount to the eventual IPO price, with conversion terms adjusted at a $30 billion valuation threshold, according to the report.
Nscale builds and operates data centers packed with GPUs and was valued at $14.6 billion after a $2 billion Series C round in March, TechCrunch reported. The company has also signed a six-year, $45 billion computing capacity agreement with Anthropic, and told investors its total contracted value is about $103 billion, according to Reuters.
A company that raised $2 billion in March and is back for $3.5 billion more before it has even gone public shows how much upfront capital the GPU data center business demands just to keep pace with contracts it has already signed, not to grow into new ones.