The Brief:
Gilbert + Tobin advised Firmus on its US$10bn (A$14.2bn) financing facility, led by Blackstone with participation from Coatue.
Allens acted for Blackstone on the deal, which will fund the rollout of AI data centres across Australia.
Not many Australian startups can say they've secured a US$10bn (A$14.2bn) cheque.
Firmus, the AI infrastructure company co-founded by Oliver Curtis and Tim Rosenfield, has done exactly that, locking in one of the largest private credit financings in Australian history.
The deal
The debt facility is led by Blackstone and backed by New York-based tech investor Coatue. The facility is structured to support the staged acquisition and deployment of high-performance GPU clusters, specifically Nvidia GB300 chips, along with associated networking, storage and data centre infrastructure.
Firmus builds and rents giant data centres earmarked for use by global AI players such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. Unlike hyperscalers offering broad cloud services, Firmus focuses on purpose-built GPU compute and leaner delivery models.
The financing builds on Firmus' $500m equity raise in November at a $6bn valuation, itself following a $330m placement in September backed by Nvidia and Ellerston Capital.
Curtis said the company is pushing towards an ASX listing in the first half of 2026.
Who's acting
Gilbert + Tobin advised Firmus, with a team led by special counsel James Frixou, supported by lawyers Sophie Barber and Abbey Crawley. Partners Anna Schwartz and Julian Cheng also assisted.
Allens advised Blackstone, led by partner Emin Altiparmak and partner Joshua Hoare, drawing on a cross-practice team spanning finance, TMT, IP and foreign investment advisory.
What they said
Frixou said: "This financing underscores how quickly AI has become core national infrastructure. Firmus is building at scale and this debt facility puts them at the centre of Australia's next phase of AI growth."
Blackstone senior managing director John Watson said: "AI is driving one of the most significant infrastructure build-outs in decades, and we believe Australia can play a central role in that transformation."
The deal cements Blackstone's deepening bet on Australian data infrastructure, two years after its $24bn acquisition of AirTrunk. For Firmus, it's the clearest signal yet that global capital sees Australia as a serious player in the AI buildout.
Source: Gilbert + Tobin, Allens