Firmus, the ‘Southgate’ AI data center builder backed by Nvidia, hits $5.5B valuation

TechCrunch / 4/8/2026

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Key Points

  • Singapore-based AI data center provider Firmus announced a $505 million strategic equity investment led by Coatue, valuing the company at $5.5B post-money.
  • The funding brings Firmus’s total capital raised to $1.35B over six months, following a prior AU$330M raise that included Nvidia as an investor.
  • Firmus is building an energy-efficient network of data centers in Australia and Tasmania under “Project Southgate,” using Nvidia reference designs to optimize efficiency.
  • The new facilities will be based on Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, expected to ship in the second half of 2026 as the successor to the Blackwell architecture.
  • The article positions Firmus as part of the broader trend of crypto-industry infrastructure companies pivoting into AI compute providers backed by major investors like Nvidia.

Asia AI data center provider Firmus on Monday announced a fresh $505 million raise led by Coatue at a $5.5 billion post-money valuation. With this round, Firmus has raised $1.35 billion in six months, it says.

The Singapore-based data center company previously raised AU$330 million (approximately $215 million) at an AU$1.85 billion ($1.2 billion) valuation from investors, including Nvidia.

Firmus is developing an energy-efficient “AI factory” network of data centers in Australia and Tasmania, a project it dubs Project Southgate. It is using Nvidia’s reference designs for building these efficient data centers. These new data centers will use Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform — the chip giant’s next-gen AI computing system succeeding its Blackwell architecture, expected to ship in the second half of 2026.

Firmus originally provided cooling technologies for Bitcoin mining and has become yet another crypto-roots-turned-AI provider company that investors love.