[FINANCIAL] AI Infrastructure · GPU
Compute · VC / Growth Equity —
Closed March 9, 2026
Nscale Closes $2B Series C at $14.6B
Valuation — Europe's Largest-Ever AI Infrastructure Round
The London-based vertically integrated AI infrastructure company
raises the largest funding round in European startup history, led by Norway's
Aker ASA and Dallas-based 8090 Industries — with NVIDIA, Dell, Citadel, Jane
Street, Lenovo, Nokia, and Point72 among participants, and Sheryl Sandberg,
Susan Decker, and Nick Clegg joining the board.
DEAL SNAPSHOT
|
ROUND SIZE $2.0 Billion |
POST-MONEY VALUATION $14.6 Billion |
|
ROUND TYPE Series C (+ $433M
pre-Series C SAFE) |
LEAD INVESTORS Aker ASA + 8090
Industries |
|
CLOSED March 9, 2026 |
AKER STAKE POST-ROUND ~23.9% fully diluted (up
from 9.3%) |
THE PARTIES
|
ACQUIRER / LEAD INVESTOR Aker ASA (lead) + 8090
Industries + NVIDIA + Citadel + Dell + Jane Street + Lenovo + Nokia + Point72
+ Astra Capital + Linden Advisors Aker ASA is a
Norwegian industrial conglomerate (CEO Oyind Eriksen) that led both the
Series B ($1.1B, Sep 2025) and this Series C. 8090 Industries, a Dallas-based
industrial tech fund co-founded by Rayyan Islam, co-led. Goldman Sachs and
J.P. Morgan served as joint placement agents. |
COMPANY Nscale Global Holdings Ltd. London-headquartered
AI infrastructure company founded in 2024 by Josh Payne. Builds vertically
integrated AI platforms combining GPU compute, networking, data services, and
orchestration software. Operates data centres in Norway (Stargate Norway —
100,000 GPUs for OpenAI), UK, Portugal, Iceland, and the U.S. (Texas —
104,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs for Microsoft). Total equity raised: >$4.5B in
under 18 months. ~IPO-track for 2026-2027. |
DEAL OVERVIEW
Nscale closed its
Series C on March 9, 2026 — raising $2 billion in primary equity plus the
consolidation of the Aker Nscale joint venture (Aker's 50% JV stake was rolled
up directly into Nscale, along with full realization of the pre-agreed earn-out
mechanism). The round values Nscale at $14.6 billion post-money — a more than
4x increase from the $3.1 billion valuation achieved at the September 2025
Series B, representing one of the fastest valuation progressions in European
tech history.
The round also
came with three high-profile board appointments: Sheryl Sandberg (co-founder of
Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, former COO of Meta), Susan Decker (former
President of Yahoo!, longtime Berkshire Hathaway board member), and Nick Clegg
(former UK Deputy Prime Minister, former President of Global Affairs at Meta,
now General Partner at Hiro Capital). The board additions signal Nscale's
transition from a capital-formation story to an operator requiring governance
depth as it scales toward a potential IPO.
"This is the fourth industrial revolution. AI will be integrated
into every industry, every product, and every job over the next five years.
Nscale is building the foundation that the market sits on — the engine of
superintelligence."
— Josh Payne,
CEO & Founder, Nscale
WHAT NSCALE DOES
Nscale is a
"neocloud" — an AI-native cloud infrastructure provider that competes
directly with CoreWeave (market leader by revenue) and Nebius. Unlike general
cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), neoclouds specialize exclusively in
GPU-dense compute for AI training, fine-tuning, and inference. Nscale's
differentiation: European sovereignty positioning (critical for EU AI Act
compliance), renewable energy strategy (the Glomfjord facility uses hydropower;
the Portugal facility uses seawater cooling), and vertically integrated
software (Control Center, managed Kubernetes, orchestration layer).
Key commercial
anchors: a $14.6 billion partnership with Microsoft (200,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs
across Texas, UK, and Portugal), a Stargate Norway project for OpenAI (100,000
GPUs, 230 MW), and its first acquisition (British engineering firm Future-tech,
December 2025). Funds will accelerate Asia expansion (no current data centre
presence) and deepen North American and European footprints.
ADVISORS
Placement
Agents: Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC +
J.P. Morgan (joint placement agents)
No legal advisors
were disclosed for either party in this private funding round.