From crypto mining rigs to a $14.6B AI empire: How Nscale got here so fast

Not many companies can claim they pivoted from crypto mining to become the centerpiece of Europe’s largest-ever equity raise. Yet Nscale just did exactly that, and the numbers are genuinely hard to ignore.

The UK-based AI infrastructure startup has closed a $2 billion Series C round, pushing its valuation to $14.6 billion and, in the process, setting a record for single equity raises across the entire European tech landscape. The round drew backing from a roster that reads like a who’s who of enterprise tech and finance, including Nvidia, Lenovo, Dell, Citadel, Jane Street, and Nokia, with Aker ASA and 8090 Industries leading the charge.

What makes this story particularly compelling is where Nscale actually came from. The company spun out of Arkon Energy, a crypto-mining infrastructure firm, and only truly emerged in 2024. Since then, in roughly 18 months, it went from relative obscurity to sitting at the table with OpenAI, Microsoft, and Nvidia on some of the most consequential infrastructure deals happening anywhere in the world right now.

Last year, Nscale joined a $15 billion OpenAI and Nvidia effort to deploy 300,000 GPUs across new data centers globally. Shortly after, it followed that with an $865 million colocation agreement tied to a planned facility in Madison, North Carolina. Additionally, an expanded Microsoft partnership reportedly worth $14 billion came through, alongside the launch of a Stargate-branded AI center in Norway. Today, the company operates data centers across the US, UK, Norway, Portugal, and Iceland.

CEO Josh Payne framed the moment with the kind of conviction that either ages brilliantly or becomes a cautionary tale. He described the current period as the fourth industrial revolution and argued that, over the next five years, AI will touch every industry, product, and job on the planet.

Meanwhile, analysts are watching the neocloud segment with measured interest. The general consensus is that companies like Nscale are not trying to dethrone AWS or Azure but rather filling a real gap around accelerated compute and regional data needs. Furthermore, the capital-intensive nature of the business means that $2 billion moves quickly once facilities and GPU systems enter the picture.

For now, Nscale is building fast and spending accordingly.