Kaan Asici

📡 Fluidstack is lining up about 700 million dollars at a 7 billion dollar valuation, built on Google backed leases for new AI data centers. Situational Awareness, a firm started by ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, is in talks to lead the financing. Fluidstack is a neocloud player, which means it mainly sells big blocks of GPU and TPU capacity from a few dense sites instead of running a broad consumer cloud. Fluidstack’s rapid rise is tied to an unprecedented demand for computing power. Major tech giants, most visibly Microsoft, have been pouring billions into such companies to secure future computing access amid growing scarcity. Fluidstack’s relocation from the UK to its new headquarters in New York signals its ambition to compete on a global stage. For investors, the startup sits directly at the intersection of two powerful forces, including infrastructure investment and the AI boom. Google has agreed to backstop leases on 3 Fluidstack data centers, including a New York facility that will host Google TPUs, so if Fluidstack cannot pay, Google covers the debt and keeps the power and space for itself. Leopold Aschenbrenner’s fund Situational Awareness is in talks to lead the round, and Fluidstack is also tied to France’s 10 billion euro, roughly 1 gigawatt, supercomputer plan, so both private capital and governments now treat it as core AI infrastructure. All of this makes Fluidstack less a normal startup and more a specialist landlord and financing wrapper around scarce power, land and racks where guaranteed access to compute is the actual product. --- High-risk financing setups are shaking up the market. Over the last year, Fluidstack, started by Gary Wu and Cesar Maklary, pulled off two big deals with Google that highlight how funding for heavy data infrastructure is changing fast. Teaming up with crypto miners TeraWulf and Cipher Mining, Fluidstack set out to build data centers using debt-backed financing. In these deals, Google served as a “backstop”, meaning it would cover payments to lenders if Fluidstack missed its obligations. It’s a strategy similar to what Meta used when it raised about $60 billion for new facilities while keeping nearly half that amount off its balance sheet. These setups make it clear that the massive funding needs of the AI boom are forcing new ideas in project financing. Instead of just offering software or cloud services, companies like Fluidstack are now acting like infrastructure developers, borrowing tactics common in the energy and real estate industries. --- bloomberg. com/news/articles/2025-12-04/data-center-startup-fluidstack-in-talks-for-7-billion-valuation