AI infrastructure player Nebius Group is raising $700 million through a private placement from a group of investors that includes Nvidia. Nebius stock jumped on the news.
The Netherlands-based Nebius Group said in a news release that the funding will support additional capacity for its plan to offer cloud-based computing power for training and running AI models. Other investors in the deal include venture capital firm Accel and accounts managed by Orbis Investments.
Nebius Group stock restarted trading in late October following a nearly three year hiatus, imposed as part of sanctions on Russia-affiliated companies following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The company was formerly part of Yandex, known as the Google of Russia. But Nebius reemerged in July, following a $5.4 billion deal that split Yandex's Russian and international assets. The Nebius Group is based in Amsterdam and led by former Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh.
On the stock market today, Nebius stock jumped more than 17% to close at 25.75.
Nebius Group: AI Infrastructure Focus
Nebius previously announced plans to invest $1 billion in developing AI-related infrastructure in Europe, which it rents to other enterprises. The firm is competing with cloud-computing giants such as Amazon and Microsoft, among others.
Nebius is also expanding to the U.S. The company last month announced the launch of its first data center with Nvidia GPUs in Kansas City. The firm is also in "advanced discussions" for a second GPU cluster in the U.S. that it hopes will come online next year. It also has a large-scale data center in Finland.
"We have demonstrated the scale of our ambitions, initiating an AI infrastructure build-out across two continents," Volozh said in a news release Monday. "This strategic financing gives us additional firepower to do it faster and on a larger scale. I'm grateful to our investors for the trust they have placed in us – our team is ready to deliver."
In a statement, Nebius said the private placement will include roughly 33.3 million class A shares priced at 21.00, which represents an approximately 3% premium to the stock's average price since it began trading in October.
Along with the deal, Nebius raised its sales outlook. The company now expects its annualized revenue run rate to reach between $750 million and $1 billion by the end of 2025, up from previous guidance of $500 million to $1 billion.
Nebius Stock Include AV Company
Along with the AI infrastructure business, Nebius Group included autonomous vehicle developer Avride, education technology company TripleTen and Toloka, a data software company focused on AI.
Avride recently announced a partnership with Uber Technologies.
Nebius stock set a new 52-week high of 27.90 with its initial surge in Monday trading before easing back.
