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Fluidstack, a startup that builds specialized data centers for AI companies, is in talks to raise a $1 billion round at an $18 billion valuation, potentially led by Jane Street, Bloomberg<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n Should this deal come to fruition, it would more than double Fluidstack\u2019s valuation in a matter of months.<\/p>\n In December the company was reportedly raising around $700 million at a $7.5 billion valuation, sources told Bloomberg<\/a> at the time, although it didn\u2019t formally announce the close of that round. That round was said to be led by Situational Awareness, an AGI-focused fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner and backed by Stripe\u2019s Collison brothers, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and the AI investor and entrepreneur Daniel Gross.<\/p>\n Talks were apparently still ongoing for this round in February, at least with Google, which was considering kicking in $100 million to the round, The Wall Street Journal reported.<\/a><\/p>\n There\u2019s good reason for the hype over Fluidstack. In November, Anthropic announced that it had signed a $50 billion deal <\/a>with the startup to build data centers custom-designed for its needs in Texas and New York. Unlike hyperscalers like AWS, which serve all kinds of computing needs, Fluidstack\u2019s infrastructure is built specifically for AI.<\/p>\n The deal was a huge vote of confidence for Fluidstack, a company that was relatively unknown in the U.S. before it. Anthropic primarily uses AWS and Google Cloud to serve Claude (though it also has a partnership with Microsoft to supply Claude to that software giant\u2019s customers). But just like rival OpenAI, Anthropic is growing so fast <\/a>that it needs more capacity, and this deal gives Anthropic more control over its own cloud infrastructure.<\/p>\n This partnership is so significant to the startup, that Fluidstack \u2014 which was spun out of Oxford and had been a rising star in Europe\u2019s AI scene \u2014 relocated its headquarters from the UK to New York. Last month, it also pulled out of a key \u20ac10 billion AI Project in France<\/a>, Bloomberg reported, to focus on U.S. opportunities.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span> In addition to Anthropic, it counts Meta, Poolside, Black Forest Labs, and others as customers. Prior to the deal with Anthropic, Fluidstack was probably best known for providing infrastructure to Mistral.<\/a><\/p>\n Fluidstack did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n