Firmus secures $505M as it readies a potential $2B listing
Australian AI infrastructure startup Firmus has raised $505 million in a funding round led by Coatue Management, with NVIDIA participating, according to a Bloomberg report. The round values Firmus at $5.5 billion and marks its third equity raise in six months, bringing total equity funding to $1.35 billion.
Sources cited in the report said the company expects this to be its final private round before pursuing an initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), potentially as soon as June or July. Firmus is reportedly targeting up to $2 billion in IPO proceeds, with Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Morgans Financial involved in preparations.
Building “AI Factories” for high-density compute
Founded in 2019 by Oliver Curtis, Tim Rosenfield, and Jonathan Levee, Firmus builds what it calls AI Factories—high-density data centres designed specifically for AI workloads. These facilities rely on large clusters of GPUs connected via high-speed networking, with purpose-built cooling and storage to support continuous operation and tight integration with NVIDIA hardware and software.
The company has claimed a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.03 at its Tasmanian sites—near the theoretical minimum—though some industry observers have questioned the scalability of such efficiency figures compared with a global average closer to 1.5.
Project Southgate and a bigger capital stack
Firmus is expanding through Project Southgate, developed with NVIDIA and CDC Data Centres. The project could reach up to 1.6 gigawatts of capacity over the next three years, starting in Melbourne and Tasmania. Firmus said a global hyperscaler has signed on as a customer, but did not disclose the name.
The equity raise follows a separate financing milestone: in February, Firmus secured a $10 billion debt package led by Coatue and Blackstone. The combination of large-scale debt and equity backing underscores intensifying investor demand for AI compute infrastructure across the Asia-Pacific region.
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