London-based AI infrastructure startup Nscale is in talks to raise as much as $3.5 billion in financing ahead of a planned IPO, with $2 billion of that sum coming from Nvidia1,2.
The company is looking to sell $1.5 billion in convertible notes — loans that can later convert into equity — to a group of investors, while separately seeking the $2 billion Nvidia commitment, Bloomberg reported on September 4. Nscale has said it may go public as early as later in September.
Nvidia is already an Nscale backer. The chipmaker participated in Nscale's $1.1 billion Series B round in March, which was led by investment fund Aker. Nscale called that raise the largest Series B in European history. The company's Series A, closed in December 2024, raised $155 million.
Nscale, described as a cloud computing firm focused on AI, was founded roughly two years ago.
The pre-IPO financing push follows a period of rapid commercial expansion. Nscale recently signed a deal with Anthropic worth approximately $45 billion. Earlier in the week of September 4, reports emerged that Nscale had been telling potential investors it has approximately $103 billion in revenue following the Anthropic deal. That figure represents a projection based on signed customer leases rather than current sales, according to The Information, as reported by TechCrunch.
ANALYSIS The gap between the $103 billion projected-revenue figure and its basis in forward lease commitments rather than realized sales is a distinction that prospective IPO investors will need to parse carefully.
A $3.5 billion pre-IPO raise, if completed, would layer onto the $1.1 billion Series B and $155 million Series A, deepening Nvidia's financial ties to the two-year-old company ahead of any public listing.
TechCrunch reported it reached out to Nscale and Nvidia for comment.