Crusoe is in active discussions to secure approximately $3 billion in fresh capital in a round that, if completed at current terms under consideration, would value the company at close to $30 billion, people familiar with the matter said. That potential valuation would represent about a threefold increase from the roughly $10 billion estimate that applied in October.
The company operates large-scale data centers that supply computing power for artificial intelligence workloads and counts contracts to provide AI capacity to major technology firms including Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google. Those discussions over financing remain ongoing and the definitive valuation for the round has not been finalized, the people said.
Last month Crusoe disclosed that it holds contracts covering nearly 5 gigawatts of computing capacity and that its total project pipeline exceeds 40 gigawatts. Those figures underscore the scale of the company's commitments and prospective installations as it expands its footprint in AI infrastructure.
Earlier reporting in June indicated that Meta is under contract to purchase computing capacity from Crusoe at two data centers located in Childress, Texas, and Warrenton, Missouri. Crusoe was founded in 2018 and originally focused on capturing excess natural gas at energy fields to run crypto-mining operations before pivoting to build-out of AI-focused data centers.
Also in June, reporting said that Crusoe had been facing difficulties at a campus it was developing in Wyoming, where it had not secured certain customers including Google. The developer involved in the Wyoming project said Crusoe had "paused" its plan to construct that data center. People familiar with the situation at the time indicated the company faced pressure to step back after concerns were raised about costs and timing under Crusoe's oversight.
Those developments - ongoing financing talks, sizable contract commitments and challenges at a specific project site - present a mixed picture as the company moves to scale its AI data center operations.