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Report: Fluidstack Round Would Value Neocloud at $40B

Situational Awareness is pitching a Fluidstack round at a $40 billion valuation, Bloomberg reports. A Fluidstack co-founder disputed the report.

Olivetti-style cover reading Fluidstack at $40B, with a server rack, rising bars and a power bolt in red, mustard and teal on cream
Olivetti-style cover reading Fluidstack at $40B, with a server rack, rising bars and a power bolt in red, mustard and teal on cream

Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, is pitching its clients on a new Fluidstack funding round that would value the neocloud at $40 billion, Bloomberg reported on October 29, citing a person familiar with the matter. The fund wants clients to invest alongside it through co-investments, and Bloomberg says other investors have also received invitations to participate.

The report has not been confirmed. Investing.com, summarizing the Bloomberg story, says a Fluidstack co-founder disputed the reporting without giving details, and a representative for Situational Awareness declined to comment. Neither report gives a round size or a close date.

How fast the price has moved

Fluidstack says it raised an $830 million Series A at a $7.5 billion valuation in January, led by Situational Awareness. In April, Bloomberg reported that Fluidstack was in talks to raise about $1 billion at a target valuation of $18 billion, with Jane Street and Situational Awareness in talks to co-lead. In September, Forbes reported that Fluidstack had closed a $1.5 billion round led by Jane Street that valued it at over $18 billion, citing several sources close to the company.

The new $40 billion figure is, per Investing.com's summary, more than five times the January valuation and roughly double the valuation from just months ago. Bloomberg describes it the same way: "roughly double the valuation the startup fetched mere months ago."

Fluidstack valuation steps: $7.5B Series A in January, $18B target reported in April, $40B proposed in October

What Fluidstack does

Fluidstack builds data center capacity for AI labs. Its own pitch is to be "the fastest on the planet at deploying hundreds of gigawatts of compute for the world's leading AI labs." Bloomberg calls it a neocloud startup. Investing.com describes the neocloud sector as debt-heavy and as providing computing infrastructure for AI workloads, and it names CoreWeave as the industry's most prominent publicly traded company.

Its commitments from AI companies include Anthropic. In November 2025, Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment in American computing infrastructure, "building data centers with Fluidstack in Texas and New York, with more sites to come." Anthropic said the sites would come online throughout 2026 and that it picked Fluidstack "for its ability to move with exceptional agility, enabling rapid delivery of gigawatts of power."

Fluidstack sites also figure in how Anthropic's compute is financed. Our explainer on Broadcom's $63 billion Anthropic chip deal covers a financing tranche tied to Anthropic capacity at Fluidstack-based sites.

Google's backstop is the quiet part of the story

Investing.com's summary of Bloomberg says Google has provided billions of dollars in financial backstops for Fluidstack-related projects, which helped those projects secure debt financing. The structure is public in securities filings by the companies that lease space to Fluidstack.

In an August 2025 filing, TeraWulf said its subsidiary leased more than 160 megawatts of critical IT load at its Lake Mariner campus in upstate New York to Fluidstack for a 10-year term. Google agreed to backstop certain Fluidstack obligations under that lease. If Fluidstack has a payment default under the lease or becomes subject to an insolvency event, Google can either pay the termination fee or pay all rent then due and take over the lease as tenant.

Cipher Mining's September 2025 filing describes a similar deal for a 168 megawatt facility in Colorado City, Texas, also on a 10-year term. In return for the backstop, Cipher issued Google warrants to buy 24,178,576 shares.

The backstop has limits. A TeraWulf filing exhibit says it only takes effect after a lease starts, and is only triggered by a payment or insolvency default. Other defaults or termination events could end a lease without triggering it.

How the Google backstop works on a Fluidstack lease: lessor leases capacity to Fluidstack for 10 years; on a payment or insolvency default, Google can pay the termination fee or take over the lease

Why the timing stands out

The pitch comes three months after Situational Awareness nearly collapsed. In late July, Reuters reported that the fund sold the bulk of its stock portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel after heavy losses in its tech holdings. CNBC reported that the fund had gone from managing roughly $45 billion into a forced reduction of its listed positions, as margin calls hit a portfolio that was long AI infrastructure names such as Nebius, CoreWeave and IREN and short software stocks. Bloomberg reported that assets fell to about $10 billion.

In August, the SEC subpoenaed banks that worked with the fund, TechCrunch reported, citing The New York Times. The fund has not been accused of wrongdoing and said it would cooperate. Our report on the SEC inquiry has more.

The neocloud sector is also under pressure. Investing.com's summary notes that investors are scrutinizing the debt-heavy sector and that CoreWeave's shares plunged last week, while its debt fell to levels signaling distress. On October 29, CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN fell again in premarket trading after Microsoft said delays in third-party capacity held back its capital spending.

What it means

A $40 billion price would be a large step up at a time when public investors are marking neocloud stocks down. Fluidstack's model also differs from the listed names. Forbes reported in September that Nebius and CoreWeave buy chips, almost entirely Nvidia GPUs, and rent them out, while Fluidstack builds its own data centers and rents the space to host chips. Its customers include Anthropic and, per Forbes, Meta, Jane Street and Black Forest Labs. Google's backstop covers payment and insolvency defaults on key leases, and Investing.com's summary says the backstops helped those projects secure debt financing.

The open questions are the ones the report does not answer: how much money the round would raise, who would lead it, and whether the price holds now that a co-founder has disputed the reporting. Situational Awareness also led the January round, so it is pitching a higher price for a company it already backs. Until Fluidstack or a lead investor confirms terms, treat the $40 billion figure as a proposed valuation in a fundraising pitch, not a closed deal.

Sources

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Edited by the llms.blog desk.

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