Crusoe raises $3B at $30B valuation as it builds Stargate, delivered 200MW in 11 months
快鲤鱼 · wechat · 2026-09-08
Crusoe, the builder of OpenAI's Stargate campus in Abilene, Texas (1.2GW planned), just raised over $3B at a $30B valuation, up from $10B a year ago.
- Origins: Founded in 2018 by ex-Jump Trading quant Chase Lochmiller to power bitcoin mining with flared natural gas; sold its 425 modular mining sites to NYDIG in 2025 and pivoted fully to AI compute.
- Energy-first strategy: Builds data centers next to energy sources to bypass grid queues; first 200MW at Abilene went from groundbreaking to operation in 11 months vs. an industry norm of 2.5 years for 100MW.
- Backlog: A five-year, $13B cloud deal with Jane Street anchored the round; 4.9GW signed capacity, 40GW+ pipeline, customers include Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle; Microsoft leases an additional 900MW.
- Neocloud race: Compared with CoreWeave (4.2GW signed, $104B backlog), Nebius (Q2 revenue $582M, +454% YoY) and Lambda (IPO-bound, targeting $12B+ valuation).
- Context: Gartner sees data-center power use hitting 565 TWh in 2026 (+26%); Crusoe is preparing an IPO.
Related event: AI data center firm Crusoe valued at $30 billion after $3 billion raise(2 posts)→
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