Nscale, a London-based AI cloud infrastructure provider, has filed an S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission to list on the NYSE under the ticker NSCL1,4. The company expects a $35 billion valuation and is seeking to raise $3 billion in the offering2,7.
The filing caps a two-year sprint from cryptocurrency mining spinout to one of the largest neocloud IPO candidates. Nscale emerged from Arkon Energy in 2024. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are leading the offering.
Backlog versus revenue
Nscale reported $140.6 million in revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2026, up 1,252% from $10.4 million a year earlier. The net loss over the same period widened to $1.02 billion from $368.9 million. Full-year 2025 revenue was $33 million.
The company's contracted backlog stood at $103.4 billion as of August 31, 2026, up from $38 billion at the end of 2025. Remaining performance obligations totaled $56.4 billion. But roughly 85% of that backlog is concentrated in two accounts: a $43.8 billion compute supply deal with Microsoft running through 2033, and a $44.6 billion agreement with Anthropic3. Anthropic's deal is contingent on Nscale obtaining financing, and Anthropic retains the right to cancel if Nscale fails to meet milestones the filing categorizes as "stringent". More than half of first-half revenue came from a single unnamed customer.
ANALYSIS The gap between $103 billion in contracted value and roughly $100 million in quarterly revenue places the burden of the IPO thesis squarely on execution: converting backlog into billed compute at the pace the valuation implies.
A credit hedge fund paper by Sona Asset Management, cited by the Financial Times, found that many AI infrastructure providers depend heavily on a limited number of customers, noting that CoreWeave derives 67% of its revenue from Microsoft.
Capital stack and GPU footprint
On September 25, Nscale announced $3.36 billion in convertible financing led by hedge fund Third Point, with $2.36 billion available immediately and an additional $1 billion from Nvidia Corp. due in mid-November. Nscale had filed its IPO paperwork the prior week. The notes convert into equity upon IPO completion. Nvidia Corp. also agreed to guarantee up to $860 million on Nscale's obligations for a data center lease in Texas. The company is sitting on more than $8 billion in debt, excluding a financing arrangement with Dell.
Nscale's prior funding rounds moved quickly: a $155 million Series A in late 2024, a $1.1 billion Series B in September 2025 backed by Aker ASA, Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia Corp., Dell and Nokia, a $433 million SAFE shortly after, and a $2 billion Series C in March 2026 led by Aker ASA and 8090 Industries that valued the company at $14.6 billion5. Other investors include Blue Owl, Fidelity, Point72, Citadel and Jane Street.
As of August 31, 2026, Nscale had 25,000 active GPUs and 461,000 GPUs either active or under contract, across five live data centers with 12 more under construction. The company claims line of sight to 10 gigawatts of computing power and had over 1,000 full-time employees. Data center campuses are located or planned in Norway, Portugal, Texas, West Virginia and North Carolina. In July, Nscale announced plans to acquire Anyscale.
Board and competitive field
Nscale's board includes former Meta executives Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg, and former OpenAI executive Fidji Simo. Founder and CEO Josh Payne, 32, described the company as built around "an infrastructure-first thesis, building against contracted customer demand".
Nscale enters a public market where CoreWeave already trades and where Lambda is reportedly in talks to raise up to $3 billion at a $12 billion-plus valuation ahead of a possible 2027 listing. Competitors also include Amazon and Nebius Group NV.