AI news · Funding · data centres
Firmus pulls Australia’s biggest planned listing since Telstra
The Nvidia-backed AI data centre builder dropped a float that would have valued it at A$44 billion and now seeks private money instead.
Firmus Technologies withdrew its planned listing on the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday 9 October 2026, when too few investors signed up for shares in the AI data centre builder, Guardian Australia reports. At an expected A$44 billion valuation, it would have been the exchange’s largest debut since Telstra in 1997. Its board decided to stop the offer, a spokesperson said, and Firmus now turns to private markets.
By midweek the A$7 billion raise was in trouble, and a cut to the A$11 share price was under discussion, according to an investment manager briefed on the talks, the Guardian reports. Fund managers doubted the price on a young company running only two small sites. Firmus, backed by Nvidia, Blackstone, Jane Street and Coatue, reported $51 million in revenue for its 2026 financial year, and only 46 megawatts of its 912-megawatt pipeline is built, according to Bloomberg, as relayed by Yahoo Finance. It is now exploring a private round of $2 billion to $3 billion that could mix equity and debt, and a US listing later.
The same week, the data centre operator CDC ended Project Southgate, its sovereign AI infrastructure partnership with Firmus; Firmus told Startup Daily the two sides agreed earlier this year to part ways.
For buyers of AI compute in Asia, Firmus’s build-out of liquid-cooled sites now rests on private investors.
Sources
- The Guardian: Firmus pulls biggest ASX float since Telstra amid investor doubt about datacentre company. Checked
- Yahoo Finance: Firmus explores $3 billion private raise after IPO collapse. Checked
- Startup Daily: Firmus looks to cut share price by nearly 20% and may even pull the IPO. Checked
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