Firmus reportedly seeks up to $3B privately after shelving IPO

Firmus, which builds and operates Nvidia-based data centers for customers needing large blocks of computing capacity, is discussing private financing after shelving its Australian IPO. Bloomberg reports the company could raise up to $3 billion; Sina Finance, carrying Gelonghui, put the talks at $2 billion to $3 billion and said the unfinished structure could combine equity and debt. This isn’t a closed round.

The company calls its facilities AI factories. In practice, Firmus assembles the power, liquid cooling, networking and GPU systems, then provides dedicated compute or cloud access so model developers and enterprises can train and run software without building the physical stack themselves. Capacity contracts, not merely construction, are the core of the business.

OpenAI agreed in September to anchor two planned Firmus sites in Malaysia, and the company said total contracted capacity across its customers had passed 900 megawatts. Firmus also said its portfolio spanned seven facilities in Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Only two were operating; five were still under development and targeted to enter service over the following 24 months.

That gap between contracts and operating infrastructure is where the financing matters. Reuters reported that Firmus abandoned a planned $5 billion listing after demand fell short, despite considering a lower price. The proposed public-market valuation of $30.6 billion was almost three times the more-than-$10.5 billion private valuation it secured in August.

Firmus raised $2 billion in that August equity round from Coatue, Nvidia, Blackstone-managed funds and Jane Street, taking equity raised over the prior year above $3 billion. Now it is back in the private market barely two months later, with five of its seven announced facilities still being built rather than operating.