Buyers proceed to pour astonishing ranges of capital into Sydney-founded Firmus Applied sciences, which has confirmed it’s set to boost one other US$505 million (A$725m) at an A$8 billion valuation.
In a fastidiously worded assertion launched Tuesday morning after information of the most recent funding leaked, Firmus stated it “expects to safe an extra USD$505 million strategic fairness funding led by [New York AI investor] Coatue… with participation from [chip maker] Nvidia topic to sure closing situations”.
The contemporary capital comes simply weeks after Firmus raised $100m at a $6bn valuation.
Firmus is trying to go public on the native bourse this 12 months, having engaged main world funding banks for an IPO roadshow. That is reportedly its remaining elevate as a personal firm, though one other A$3 billion elevate has been mooted as a part of the ASX itemizing – greater than the overall market cap of 2024’s Guzman y Gomez listing.
Based in Sydney in 2019 by Oliver Curtis, Tim Rosenfield and Jonathan Levee, Firmus was initially centered on bitcoin mining. Because the AI increase gathered momentum, the now Singapore-based firm pivoted to what it calls “inexperienced AI factories” with “a brand new type of infrastructure designed particularly to satisfy the wants of power intensive AI computing workloads – with a deal with power effectivity, excessive efficiency, and sustainability”, constructing partnerships with CDC Information Centres and Nvidia.
APAC ambitions
Firmus says the brand new funds will assist the fast deployment of its “AI infrastructure platform, primarily based on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin DSX reference design, throughout the Asia-Pacific area”, in addition to its A$73 billion “Mission Southgate” in a number of capital cities round Australia “to satisfy rising demand for energy-efficient AI infrastructure from hyperscale, enterprise, and sovereign prospects”.
The corporate’s secret sauce is a less expensive, decrease power approach to cool the processing stacks utilizing much less water – key environmental considerations amid the broader political push for Australia to be a world knowledge centre hub.
From an preliminary partnership with the Tasmanian authorities to construct an “AI manufacturing unit” in Launceston utilizing renewable power – the venture is at the moment a concrete slab amid main earthworks, in accordance with pictures launched right now – Firmus subsequently introduced “Mission Southgate”.
For comparability, AWS, a subsidiary of the Amazon, producing world income of US$128.7bn and working revenue of US$45.6 billion, plans to spend spend much less {that a} third of A$73.3bn ambition Firmus has, committing A$20bn (US$13.9bn) to build data centres in Australia final June.
But the lure of risk has seen buyers pile into Firmus hoping AI centres are the brand new Bendigo goldfields.
Massive bucks, small change globally
In that respect, the enterprise just isn’t distinctive. As Crunchbase pointed out last week, within the first quarter of 2026, the overall invested in startups was almost 70% of all the VC funding deployed in 2025. However amid US$300bn handed out to 6000 startups within the March quarter, almost two-thirds (US$188bn) went to simply 4 firms – OpenAI (US$122bn), Anthropic (US$30bn), Elon Musk’s xAI (US$20bn) and Alphabet (Google) autonomous car subsidiary Waymo ($16bn).
In that context, whereas the cash slung a Firmus seems huge at a neighborhood degree – almost $2 billion in six months is just like the overall Blackbird has raised throughout six funds in 14 years – it’s the worldwide equal of $5 every means within the Melbourne Cup.
But it’s nonetheless breathtaking.
In simply six months since final September, having not but constructed an operational knowledge centres to generate revenue (its Melbourne “manufacturing unit” is about to open shortly), Firmus has seen its valuation enhance by 400% since banking A$330m in a deal with Nvidia (a key supporter of Sam Altman’s OpenAI).
Simply two months later, in mid-November, Firmus raised $500 million at a $6 billion valuation.
This newest funding is predicted to take the overall raised to US$1.35 billion (A$1.95bn) at a post-money US$5.5bn (A$7.95bn) valuation.
Curtis, the co-CEO and husband of publicist Roxy Jacenko, discovered notoriety a decade in the past when, as a 30-year-old stockbroker, he was sentenced to imprisonment for 2 years for an insider buying and selling rip-off with a good friend that netted them $1.43 million. He served 12 months in NSW gaols earlier than being launched in 2017.
He went to on to initially make investments A$250,000 in Firmus, which, by 2024, was valued at a modest $81 million. Curtis is now doubtlessly a billionaire on paper. Many others are hoping his good fortunes rub off on them too.
Curtis stated the brand new deal “reinforces Australia’s position in world AI infrastructure whereas accelerating our Asia-Pacific development technique. Mission Southgate offers a powerful basis for exporting environment friendly AI compute globally, and our expertise in Singapore offers us a confirmed blueprint for scaling throughout Southeast Asia”.
Coatue’s head of AI infrastructure, Robert Yin, stated: “Firmus is closing that hole with an energy-efficient AI Manufacturing unit mannequin purpose-built for next-generation compute at a world scale”.
And the general public float of Firmus will check the broader urge for food for knowledge centre companies in Australia amid a growing pushback , whatever they’re called.
