Amid growing demand for data centers that can deliver AI compute at scale, the British AI infrastructure company Nscale, which is backed by Nvidia, is now valued at $14.6 billion. This makes it one of Europe’s latest decacorns, alongside companies like Helsing and Mistral AI.
Nscale has bet on a strategy of vertical integration, spanning from energy and data centers to compute and orchestration software. Its new valuation stems from a $2 billion Series C funding round, which the company calls the largest in European history. This figure includes a $433 million pre-Series C SAFE backed by BlueOwl, Dell, Nvidia, and Nokia from October. The raise was supported by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, whose involvement has been interpreted as preparation for an initial public offering. That speculation is supported by Nscale CEO Josh Payne telling The New York Times that his company might seek to go public as early as this year to generate more capital.
Alongside its funding and plans, the company also announced that former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, former Yahoo president Susan Decker, and former U.K. deputy prime minister Nick Clegg are joining its board.
Nscale is no newcomer to major funding rounds. In September, it announced a $1.1 billion Series B led by Aker, a public Norwegian company with interests in energy. Aker is also co-leading the current Series C alongside New York-based investment firm 8090 Industries. The companies also agreed that Aker’s joint venture with Nscale will now be fully managed by the startup. Dubbed Stargate Norway, this Norway-based AI infrastructure project aims to run on 100,000 Nvidia GPUs by the end of 2026, with OpenAI as an initial customer. According to Aker president and CEO Øyvind Eriksen, who sits on Nscale’s board, this step strengthens execution by putting delivery and governance under one roof.
Last October, Nscale signed an expanded deal with Microsoft to bring approximately 200,000 Nvidia GPUs to three data centers in Europe and one in the United States, in collaboration with Dell. Dell and Nvidia both participated in the Series C, as did other investors including Astra Capital, Citadel, Jane Street, Lenovo, Linden Advisors, Nokia, and Point72.
Nscale expects the new funding to accelerate the development of its AI infrastructure across Europe, North America, and Asia, while helping the company expand its engineering and operations teams and strengthen its platform. Beyond equity, the company also raised debt last month via a $1.4 billion delayed draw term loan backed by GPUs to finance some of its clusters across Europe.
The company aims to harness rising enterprise demand and low-cost renewable energy. It has also renewed its pledge to reuse waste heat, develop local skills, and invest in regional infrastructure as part of the Stargate Norway project.