Crusoe has secured a $225 million credit facility to fund the expansion of its cloud platform.
The financing was led by private credit firm Upper90 Capital Management, while British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, FS Investments, King Street Capital Management, Liberty Mutual Investments, and ORIX USA also contributed.
Best known as a data center developer, Crusoe also runs a neocloud service for companies wishing to rent AI infrastructure.
The funding will be used to purchase Nvidia GPUs and supporting infrastructure to help expand this service.
"This funding will fuel the expansion of Crusoe Cloud, our platform designed to simplify and accelerate AI development for every company," said Chase Lochmiller, CEO and co-founder of Crusoe. "Our long-standing strategic relationship with Upper90 has been instrumental in helping Crusoe scale our technology to meet the incredible demand for Crusoe Cloud with enterprise customers."
Crusoe started life as a cryptomining company, and originally placed data centers along oil and gas pipelines, using natural gas that would have otherwise been burned off to mine Bitcoin.
However, in recent years, it has pivoted to AI infrastructure and is developing a large data center campus in Texas alongside Oracle for OpenAI’s Stargate project. It also previously formed a $5bn joint venture with Chirisa and PowerHouse to develop data centers across the US – mostly for AI cloud firm CoreWeave.
Earlier this week, it announced its exit from cryptomining, selling its remaining assets to NYDIG.
DCD reported earlier this month that Crusoe had gained access to 4.5GW of natural gas power through a joint venture with investment firm Engine No.1. It will use this to power new AI data centers, some of which may be built for Stargate.
For Crusoe Cloud, the company has taken space in atNorth's ICE02 data center in Iceland, and has partnered with Digital Realty.
Upper90 was one of Crusoe’s first backers, providing it with an equipment loan back in 2019.
“Crusoe is at the forefront of both AI cloud computing and sustainable energy solutions,” said Billy Libby, CEO and co-founder of Upper90. “We specialize in structuring innovative financing for high-growth companies, and we’re proud to deepen our relationship with Crusoe.”
