U.K.-based neocloud startup Nscale has secured a $2 billion series C funding round that values the company at $14.6 billion, cementing its status as one of the fastest-rising players in Artificial Intelligence infrastructure. According to Nscale, the series C round is the largest ever recorded in Europe, although that claim has not been independently verified. The new investment builds on a $1.1 billion Series B completed in September and a $433 million pre-series C simple agreement for future equity agreement, with the latest funding total including the pre-series C component.
Nscale was formed in 2024 after being spun out of an Australian bitcoin mining firm and has rapidly repositioned itself around developing data centers and operating cloud services tailored to Artificial Intelligence workloads. The latest round was led by Aker USA and 8090 Industries, with continued backing from Nvidia and additional support from Nokia, Lenovo, Citadel and Dell. Among its major commercial commitments, Nscale has agreed to deploy 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs to Microsoft across data centers in Barstow, Texas; Sines, Portugal; Loughton, Essex in the U.K.; and Narvik, Norway. For the Norwegian project, which was initially announced as a joint venture with Aker, Nscale now plans to assume full control while Aker remains a major shareholder in the London-based company.
The company is also working with U.K.-based Verne Global on a data center development in Keflavik, Iceland, as part of a broader buildout in Europe and other regions. The new funding will be used to accelerate infrastructure projects in Europe, North America and Asia and to expand Nscale’s engineering and operations teams. To underscore its growing influence, Nscale has appointed former Meta chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, former Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg and former Yahoo president Susan Decker to its board of directors. Chief executive Josh Payne framed the capital raise within a longer-term vision, stating that “over the next five years, artificial intelligence will be integrated into every industry, every product and every job” and outlining expectations for advances in drug discovery, human longevity, autonomous travel, robotics and productivity. Nscale is widely viewed as a candidate for an IPO, with Payne having previously indicated a target around the “back end of next year [2026],” although the current status of that timeline is unclear.
