You are not reading that wrong. Firmus’ valuation has grown from $2 Billion to $6 Billion in 2 months.
Reference: Firmus raises another $500 million for its AI data centres
Reference: Nvidia-backed Australian AI company Firmus raises $325 million | Reuters
That’s actually not even the most fascinating thing about Firmus. Smart Company Australia has this gold nugget about Firmus’ co-founder Oliver Curtis ->
The son of mining and banking exec Nick Curtis, Oliver became infamous in 2016 when, as a 30-year-old stockbroker, he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for an insider trading scam with a close friend that netted them just $1.43 million. He served 12 months before being released in 2017.
Nothing says ‘totally justified that we tripled the company’s valuation to $6 billion in 2 months’ like one of the co-founders having spent a year in jail for insider trading.
Firmus’ Funding Rounds
- Seed Round -> Uniknown investment at an Unknown Valuation
- We do know that co-founder Oliver Curtis invested $250,000
- 2024 -> Valued at $81 Million. No details on whether funds were raised in 2024
- Aug 2025 -> $330 Million raised at a $2 Billion valuation from Nvidia
- Nov 2025 -> $500 Million raised at a $6 Billion valuation
The latest $500 Million is for the national rollout of Project Southgate. Project Southgate is hoping to deliver AI Factory deployments of up to 1.6 gigawatts by 2028.
We are definitely not in an AI Bubble
Under normal circumstances people would be super reluctant to invest in someone who spent a year in jail for Insider Trading (for a paltry $1.4 million gain).
It’s absolutely nuts that not only are people investing in a company with a co-founder that spent time in jail for insider trading, they also raised its valuation from $2 billion to $6 billion in Two Months.
Firmus plans to IPO in 2026. So it might be that the investors think the Australian public or the American public will be bailing them out.
Interesting Firmus History
Firmus was founded in 2019 by Oliver Curtis, Tim Rosenfield and Jonathan Levee, and originally focused on bitcoin mining.
The company pivoted to what it calls “green AI factories” somewhere between 2019 and 2024.
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