Australian AI cloud provider Firmus has raised US$2 billion in a strategic equity investment round, marking one of the largest private capital raises in the country's technology infrastructure sector. The funding will accelerate the company's rapid expansion across Australia and into broader Asia-Pacific markets, as demand for AI-ready data center capacity continues to outpace supply globally.
The round featured follow-on participation from Coatue and Nvidia, both of which had previously backed the company in its US$505 million equity investment completed in April 2026. Blackstone Tactical Opportunities, along with other Blackstone vehicles, led the latest investment, with additional participation from Jane Street. In a statement, Firmus said the capital will fast-track the next phase of its 'Project Southgate AI Factory' rollout in Australia and support early-stage expansion into other Asia-Pacific territories.
This transaction brings Firmus's total capital raised over the past 12 months to more than US$3 billion, giving the company a post-money valuation exceeding US$10.5 billion. The scale of the raise underscores the intensity of investor appetite for AI infrastructure platforms that combine cloud services, specialized cooling technology, and large-scale data center development.
"This investment allows us to move on multiple fronts at once," said Oliver Curtis, co-CEO of Firmus. "We're scaling across Australia while fast-tracking our capacity to expand into the wider Asia-Pacific region, including the early steps behind our recently announced Indonesia development that will serve AI-native customers. We're excited to see continued backing from Coatue, Nvidia, Blackstone and Jane Street as we build one of the world's leading AI infrastructure platforms from Australia."
Founded in 2019, Firmus initially focused on crypto and high-performance compute, specializing in immersion cooling technology. Today, the company describes itself as a pure AI factory builder, a shift that reflects the broader market transformation toward purpose-built AI data centers. The company currently operates a small facility in Tasmania and is developing a 90MW data center in Launceston, with plans for a 288MW campus on the island. It is also partnering with CDC to deploy capacity on mainland Australia and targeting approximately 1.6GW of total infrastructure by 2028.
In June 2026, Firmus revealed a partnership with SubCo to build a subsea cable connecting mainland Australia to Tasmania, a move intended to bolster connectivity for its island-based facilities. That same month, the company announced a collaboration with Nvidia to deploy a 170,000-GPU cluster at a data center in Batam, Indonesia. In early July, Firmus reached an agreement under which Nvidia will act as a financial backstop by renting back unused GPUs at a fixed rate in exchange for a share of Firmus's revenue, a structure that reduces downside risk for the cloud provider while aligning both companies around long-term capacity utilization.
Industry analysts note that Firmus's rapid fundraising trajectory reflects a broader trend of hyperscale AI infrastructure deals attracting multi-billion-dollar commitments from institutional investors and chipmakers alike. The company's ability to secure backing from both financial and strategic investors positions it as a significant player in the Asia-Pacific AI cloud market, where demand for GPU-intensive computing is expected to grow sharply over the coming years. With its mix of domestic expansion, international development, and novel financing structures, Firmus is emerging as a bellwether for how AI infrastructure companies are scaling in competitive global markets.