London-based AI infrastructure firm Nscale is poised for a US initial public offering (IPO) as soon as September, having amassed approximately $51 billion in total contracted revenue.
Quarterly revenue has skyrocketed from about $37 million in Q1 2026 to over $100 million in Q2, and the company aims for a remarkable 10GW of AI data centre capacity while securing nearly 289,000 contracted GPUs.
Preparations for the IPO follow several significant milestones, including a $2 billion funding round and a $1.65 billion acquisition of Anyscale.
London-based AI infrastructure company Nscale is reportedly gearing up for a US initial public offering as early as September, having informed prospective investors of its remarkable achievement in securing around $51 billion in total contracted revenue, as reported by Bloomberg.
Executives at Nscale have disclosed to potential investors that its revenue surged to over $100 million in Q2 2026, a substantial increase from approximately $37 million in Q1 and about $33 million throughout all of 2025.
When annualized, Nscale’s run rate lands in the vicinity of $400 million to $500 million. This disparity is elucidated by the nature of infrastructure contracts, wherein a single multi-year compute agreement is counted as billions in future revenue upon signing, well before any GPU becomes operational.
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are reportedly advising on the anticipated IPO, though discussions remain fluid and the listing may face delays.
From a Cold LinkedIn Message to a $51 Billion Contract Book
Nscale was established in 2024 by Josh Payne, an Australian entrepreneur with a diverse background ranging from coal mining to a construction recruitment platform and even cryptocurrency mining, before venturing into AI infrastructure.
The company emerged from Arkon Energy, a Melbourne-based crypto miner, following a $155 million Series A funding round in December 2024.
Payne attributes the rapid growth to a partnership initiated by a cold LinkedIn message directed to Aker’s Chief Executive Øyvind Eriksen, who has since joined Nscale’s board.
Nscale’s fundraising efforts have outpaced many of its European infrastructure counterparts, securing a $1.1 billion Series B in September 2025, a $433 million pre-Series C SAFE round shortly thereafter, a $1.4 billion GPU-backed loan in February, a $790 million debt facility for the Narvik campus in May, and a $2 billion Series C in March that valued the company at $14.6 billion.
In July, Nscale secured a $900 million revolving credit facility from a consortium of banks led by J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
Additionally, at the end of July, the company agreed to acquire the distributed AI software firm Anyscale for roughly $1.65 billion, with the deal expected to finalize in the latter half of 2026.
Anyscale contributes approximately 200 employees, a customer base that includes Coinbase, Runway, and Bedrock Robotics, and boasts an impressive 70% sequential revenue growth in its most recent quarter, according to its co-founders.
The Series C round also strengthened Nscale’s board for its forthcoming listing, including prominent figures like Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Meta; Susan Decker, former Yahoo president; and Nick Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister.
Additionally, Microsoft veteran Nidhi Chappell has been appointed as the president of AI infrastructure, alongside JPMorgan’s Alice Takhtajan, who assumes the role of Chief Financial Officer.
Why Customer Concentration Matters More
Nscale is augmenting its chip inventory, comprising roughly 25,000 active chips and about 289,000 active and contracted chips as of Q2 2026.
This includes approximately 194,000 contracted Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs, in addition to already deployed Blackwell processors.
The UK startup is not alone in navigating public markets or accessing public-style capital driven by the surging demand for AI infrastructure.
Competitors like CoreWeave have gone public with multibillion-dollar contracts from OpenAI and Nvidia, while Crusoe is reportedly negotiating a threefold valuation increase to around $30 billion on the heels of its Stargate project.
Together AI raised $800 million in April at an $8.3 billion valuation. Nscale contends its claim to a premium over these competitors lies in its vertical integration: it owns the power infrastructure, the data centres, the GPUs, and, with Anyscale, the software that overlays these capabilities.
The pivotal question that the IPO is likely to address is whether this integration merits a premium multiple, or if public investors will perceive this model as laden with debt and capital intensity in comparison to pure-play cloud providers.
Source link: Techfundingnews.com.
