Crusoe, a vertically integrated artificial intelligence infrastructure provider, secured $600 million in Series D funding led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, valuing the company at $2.8 billion. The round included participation from Fidelity, NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), and other investors, the company announced on Thursday.
What Happened: The investment marks Founders Fund's latest significant technology bet, following its recent $200 million cryptocurrency investment split between Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) earlier this year.
"The biggest risk with AI is that we don't go big enough. Crusoe is here to liberate us from the island of limited ambition," Thiel said in a statement.
Crusoe, founded in 2018, differentiates itself by using waste natural gas from oilfields to power its data centers, addressing both environmental concerns and the growing demand for AI computing resources.
Why It Matters: The company recently announced plans for a new data center in Abilene, Texas, projected to add $1 billion to the local economy over 20 years and create more than 800 jobs. The facility will feature over 1.2 gigawatts of capacity, making it one of the world's largest high-performance computing clusters.
Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller said, "To reduce complexity, accelerate time-to-value, and support the most demanding AI solutions, customers need a vertically integrated approach."
The funding announcement coincides with the general availability launch of Crusoe Cloud, the company's high-performance cloud platform designed for AI and machine learning workloads. Customer count grew more than sevenfold in the past year, according to company data.
Founders Fund's portfolio includes both past and current investments in notable companies such as SpaceX, Palantir, Stripe, Neuralink, OpenAI, The Boring Company, and Polymarket.
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