Fluidstack in talks to raise $1B at $18B valuation shortly after reaching $7.5B, report says

Fluidstack, a company focused on building specialised data centres for AI workloads, is reportedly in discussions to raise a $1 billion funding round at an $18 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. Jane Street could potentially lead the round.

If finalised, the deal would mark a rapid surge in the company’s valuation, more than doubling it within just a few months.

Back in December, the startup was reported to be raising around $700 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. That round was reportedly led by Situational Awareness, a fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. Prominent investors, including Patrick Collison and John Collison of Stripe, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and AI investor Daniel Gross, also backed.

Discussions around that earlier funding round were still ongoing as recently as February, with Google reportedly considering contributing $100 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Fluidstack’s rapid rise has been driven in large part by strong demand for AI-specific infrastructure. In November, Anthropic announced it had signed a massive $50 billion agreement with Fluidstack to build custom data centres in Texas and New York tailored to its AI systems. Unlike traditional hyperscale providers such as Amazon Web Services, which serve a broad range of computing needs, Fluidstack’s infrastructure is purpose-built for AI workloads.

That deal significantly boosted the company’s profile, particularly in the United States, where it had previously been less well known. While Anthropic continues to rely on providers like AWS and Google Cloud to run its Claude models, the company — like its rival OpenAI — is expanding so quickly that it requires additional capacity. The partnership with Fluidstack gives it more direct control over its computing infrastructure.

The scale of this agreement has reshaped Fluidstack’s strategy. Originally spun out of the University of Oxford and considered a rising player in Europe’s AI ecosystem, the company has since moved its headquarters from the U.K. to New York. It also withdrew from a major €10 billion AI project in France last month, according to Bloomberg, to focus more heavily on opportunities in the U.S. market.

Beyond Anthropic, Fluidstack’s client list includes Meta, Poolside, Black Forest Labs, and others. Before its high-profile deal with Anthropic, the company was perhaps best known for providing infrastructure to Mistral.