Sandberg, Clegg join Nscale board as this ‘Stargate Norway’ startup hits $14.6B valuation

Source: TechCrunch

Amid growing demand for data centers that can deliver AI compute at scale, the Nvidia‑backed British AI infrastructure company Nscale is now valued at $14.6 billion, joining Europe’s latest decacorns such as Helsing and Mistral AI.

Valuation and Funding

• The new valuation follows a $2 billion Series C round, described by Nscale as “the largest in European history.”
• The round includes a $433 million pre‑Series C SAFE backed by Blue Owl, Dell, Nvidia, and Nokia (October).
• Lead investors: Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, whose involvement has been interpreted as IPO preparation (Reuters).
• CEO Josh Payne told The New York Times that the company might go public “as early as this year” to raise additional capital (NYT).

Board Appointments

Nscale announced that the following high‑profile executives are joining its board:

• Sheryl Sandberg – former COO of Meta
• Susan Decker – former President of Yahoo
• Nick Clegg – former UK Deputy Prime Minister

Recent Funding History

• September 2025: $1.1 billion Series B led by Aker, a Norwegian energy group. Aker co‑leads the Series C alongside New York‑based 8090 Industries.

• Stargate Norway: A joint venture between Aker and Nscale, now fully managed by Nscale. The project aims to run 100,000 Nvidia GPUs by the end of 2026, with OpenAI as an initial customer (TechCrunch, OpenAI announcement).

  “This step strengthens execution by putting delivery and governance under one roof, while keeping continuity for the people and projects already underway.” – Øyvind Eriksen, President & CEO of Aker, board member of Nscale.

Partnerships and Deals

• Microsoft Expansion (Oct 2025): Nscale signed an expanded agreement to bring ≈200,000 Nvidia GPUs to three European data centers and one in the U.S., in collaboration with Dell (Nscale press release, TechCrunch).
• Series C Participants: Dell, Nvidia, Astra Capital, Citadel, Jane Street, Lenovo, Linden Advisors, Nokia, Point72, among others.
• The funding will accelerate AI infrastructure development across Europe, North America, and Asia, expand engineering and operations teams, and strengthen the platform.

Debt Financing

• In addition to equity, Nscale secured a $1.4 billion delayed‑draw term loan backed by GPUs to finance cluster deployments across Europe (press release).
• The loan supports the company’s strategy to leverage rising enterprise demand, low‑cost renewable energy, waste‑heat reuse, local skill development, and regional infrastructure investment as part of Stargate Norway.