OpenAI Data Center Supplier Crusoe Raised $686 Million

According to an SEC filing, Crusoe Energy, a firm that is constructing data centers that are purportedly to be leased to Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI, is currently raising $818 million.

According to the report, Crusoe has raised $686 million of the $818 million it intends to raise. According to the report, 70 investors have made contributions to the tranche thus far.

A Crusoe representative told TechCrunch, “A company at our stage of growth is always talking to investors.”

Crusoe was negotiating to raise about $500 million in a capital round headed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, with Felicis Ventures participating, according to a Financial Times article earlier this year. It appears that investors were looking for a bigger tranche, which would likely fetch a higher price than the $3 billion that was supposed to exist, which was already twice Crusoe’s prior valuation.

If Crusoe is successful in raising $818 million, the business will have raised almost $1.5 billion in debt and equity. Crusoe used its data center chips as security to obtain $200 million in financing late last year in order to purchase thousands of AI processors.

Crusoe began as a cryptocurrency company in 2018 and uses natural gas that would otherwise be “flared off” and wasted to power its data centers. As AI gained popularity, Crusoe, like many cryptocurrency mining businesses, changed course and signed agreements with AI firms to supply high-performance computing and AI infrastructure.

Crusoe announced in early October that it would develop a huge data center in Abilene, Texas, as part of a $3.4 billion joint venture with asset manager Blue Owl Capital. Oracle is anticipated to lease the site, which it would then lease to Microsoft and OpenAI, a close partner.


The market for “neocloud” entrepreneurs creating on-demand, low-cost AI clouds is expanding.

The GPU infrastructure company CoreWeave claims to have an astounding $12.7 billion in available cash, which includes about $3 billion in equity and nearly $10 billion in debt. Early in April, Lambda Labs was able to get a $500 million special-purpose finance vehicle. Last October, Voltage Park, a nonprofit organization supported by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, revealed plans to invest $500 million in GPU-powered data centers. Additionally, Together AI, a cloud GPU host that also carries out research on generative AI, raised $106 million in a round lead by Salesforce in March.

The build-outs may have a significant effect on the ecosystem. According to IDC, the amount of electricity used in data centers worldwide is predicted to more than double between 2023 and 2028. Additionally, by 2030, data center tech vendors would produce emissions equal to 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, predicts Morgan Stanley.

In a recent interview, Chase Lochmiller, CEO of Crusoe, claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) is the answer to the AI energy crisis.

He told SiliconAngle analyst Dave Vellante, “There are all these complaints about AI’s energy usage, [but] AI is the solution to AI’s energy usage.” “AI is the instrument we’ve been searching for to propel these scientific advancements necessary to realize affordable, sustainably powered futures.”