Firmus scraps $7bn ASX float, blames market volatility
Sydney-founded AI infrastructure company Firmus withdrew its ASX IPO on Friday, citing "market volatility" after brokers claimed earlier in the week that investor interest was "well in excess" of the $7.1bn offer size.
The company raised more than US$3 billion privately over the past year, backed by Nvidia, Blackstone and Coatue. Valuation moved from roughly A$1.85bn in September 2025 to A$15bn by August 2026. Now the public markets said no.
"The Board determined that the terms on which the Offer could proceed would not appropriately reflect the strength of the Company's business and long-term growth outlook," Firmus said in a statement. Translation: the price was not high enough.
Firmus planned to spend $4.4bn of IPO proceeds on servers and deployment across Tasmania and Southeast Asia. The overall plan called for $51bn in buildout costs across five AI data centres by 2028, with claimed contract revenue of $20bn once online.
What the company did not say: how much of that $51bn buildout continues without the public raise, or what "alternative public and private market options" actually means when you have already raised $3bn privately.
The sales angle
Public reporting shows no clear sales team count or revenue figures. Hiring signals lean toward engineering and operations, not enterprise sales. For a company claiming $20bn in future contract revenue, that is notable.
Firmus markets itself as Australian-founded despite now being headquartered in Singapore. The company began as a bitcoin miner in 2019 before pivoting to AI data centres, which tells you something about how fast capital moved into this space.
The float was supposed to validate the AI infrastructure buildout story. Instead, it validated that even with Nvidia backing and $3bn already raised, the public markets wanted better terms. Worth watching whether the private backers keep writing cheques at previous valuations or if this marks a reset.