- Nscale has raised $3.36 billion in convertible loan notes, led by Third Point.
- NVIDIA’s $1 billion share is due in mid-November; $2.36 billion was funded at closing.
- Nscale reports $103.4 billion in contracted value against $140.6 million in first-half revenue.
Nscale, the London-based AI cloud company, has raised $3.36 billion in convertible loan notes led by Third Point, the New York hedge fund founded by Dan Loeb. The financing, announced on September 25, follows Nscale’s September 18 filing for a US initial public offering, or IPO, on the New York Stock Exchange, where it plans to trade under the ticker NSCL.
NVIDIA, funds managed by Apollo, Citadel, Hudson Bay Capital, the Abu Dhabi Investment Council and 8090 Industries also took part. So did Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Qube Research & Technologies, Context Capital Management, Longaeva Partners, Wellington Management, Castleknight, Ghisallo Capital Management, LionTree Investment Fund, Javelin Venture Partners and Irving Investors.
The financing has two parts: $2.36 billion funded at closing, and a further $1 billion commitment from NVIDIA, an existing investor, expected in mid-November. The notes convert automatically into ordinary shares, or non-voting shares in NVIDIA’s case, when Nscale completes its IPO. Goldman Sachs acted as placement agent for the notes and is also a lead bookrunner on the IPO, alongside J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
“This marks a milestone for Nscale as we continue scaling our full-stack AI infrastructure to meet unprecedented global demand. With the backing of these world-class investors, we are strongly positioned to accelerate our data center buildouts globally” said Josh Payne, founder and CEO of Nscale.
The announcement does not give the conversion price, interest rate or maturity. Hedgeweek reported in early September, citing a person familiar with the matter, that the notes were being marketed at a double-digit discount to the eventual IPO price. Nscale has not confirmed that. The Financial Times has reported a valuation target of about $35 billion and Bloomberg a raise of up to $3 billion, according to TechCrunch, while the filing leaves the price range and share count blank. A $35 billion valuation would be more than double the $14.6 billion Nscale was worth after its Series C in March.
$103 billion in contracts, $140.6 million in revenue
Nscale’s filing puts total contracted value at $103.4 billion as of August 31, up from $38 billion at the end of 2025. The filing defines the figure as revenue contracted over the full term of signed customer agreements, and about $2.6 billion of it is active today. Revenue was $140.6 million in the first half of 2026, against a net loss of $1.02 billion.
About 85% of the contracted value comes from two customers, according to TechCrunch: a $43.8 billion Microsoft agreement running through 2033 and an Anthropic deal worth up to about $44.6 billion at Nscale’s Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia. Tech Funding News reported a figure of around $51 billion in early August; the Anthropic agreements were signed on August 25. TechCrunch also reports that the Anthropic deal is contingent on Nscale obtaining financing, and that Anthropic can cancel it if Nscale misses milestones the filing calls “stringent.”
Payne told prospective shareholders, in a letter that opens the filing, that Nscale built against contracted demand while “maintaining prudent leverage.”
Building the full AI infrastructure stack
Nscale, founded in 2024 as a spin-out of crypto-mining company Arkon Energy, operates by owning each layer of AI computing: land and behind-the-meter power, meaning electricity generated on-site rather than drawn from the grid.
As of August 31, the company had about 25,000 active GPUs and 461,000 active or contracted GPUs, across five active and 12 contracted data centre sites, according to the filing. Its team has grown from 40 to more than 1,000 people.
Nscale says it serves hyperscalers, the largest cloud providers, as well as frontier AI labs, AI-native companies and enterprises.
The new notes are the latest in a run of financings that TFN has put at more than $9 billion since 2024 as of September 1. Nscale raised a $2 billion Series C at a $14.6 billion valuation in March, $790 million of debt for its Narvik campus in Norway in May, and a $900 million revolving credit facility in July.
On August 31 it announced roughly $3 billion of debt for GPU campuses in Texas and North Carolina. It has also agreed to supply at least $3.5 billion of AI cloud capacity to humanoid robotics company Figure, with room to grow beyond $6 billion, and in July agreed to buy AI software company Anyscale for about $1.65 billion.
A capital-intensive AI infrastructure race
Nscale competes with a growing group of providers racing to secure GPUs, power and data centre capacity. Crusoe announced a $3.9 billion Series F at a $30.9 billion valuation on September 17, co-led by Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners. TFN covered Bloomberg’s earlier report of a raise of more than $3 billion at roughly $30 billion. Lambda is reportedly in talks to raise up to $3 billion at a valuation of $12 billion or more, according to Bloomberg, after its $1.5 billion-plus round in November 2025.
CoreWeave and Nebius, both listed on Nasdaq, are raising debt at similar scale. CoreWeave secured an $8.5 billion investment-grade delayed-draw term loan, and Nebius closed $5.75 billion in convertible notes in August and took a $775 million secured loan in July.
The notes turn into shares only if the listing goes ahead, and Anthropic can cancel its contract if Nscale misses build milestones. With about 25,000 of 461,000 GPUs active, the open question is how fast Nscale closes that gap, and whether the IPO price reflects the timetable.
