This Former Coal Miner Messaged a CEO on LinkedIn. Now His AI Startup Is Worth $14.6 Billion |
This Former Coal Miner Messaged a CEO on LinkedIn. Now His AI Startup Is Worth $14.6 Billion
Josh Payne’s startup Nscale just raised $2 billion from Nvidia and other investors. But one of its biggest partnerships started with a simple cold outreach.
BY LEILA SHERIDAN, NEWS WRITER
Illustration: Inc.; Photos: Getty Images; Courtesy company
Two years ago, Josh Payne sent a cold message on LinkedIn that would help transform his startup into one of the fastest-rising companies in the artificial intelligence infrastructure boom.
The Australian founder reached out to Øyvind Eriksen, the chief executive of Norwegian industrial conglomerate Aker, with a pitch: partner with his young data center company to build massive computing hubs in Norway powered by cheap Nordic energy.
The message landed, and the two executives struck a deal to develop data centers together. Eriksen then joined the company’s board, and the partnership helped propel Payne’s startup, Nscale, into the center of the global race to build the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence, The New York Times reported.
Now, the company has raised $2 billion from Nvidia and other investors including Aker and venture capital firm 8090 Industries, valuing the business at $14.6 billion. The investment underscores how capital is pouring into companies building the enormous computing systems required to run modern AI models.
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Payne did not start his career in technology. Before launching Nscale in 2024 after moving from Australia to London, he worked in coal mines, where long shifts left stretches of downtime he filled by reading entrepreneurship books such as The 4-Hour Work Week, according to The Times. Eventually he launched a recruitment platform that connected construction workers with jobs across Australia.
That business exposed him to large infrastructure projects and energy markets, which later pulled him into renewable energy investing and cryptocurrency mining, two industries that rely heavily on massive amounts of electricity.
Those experiences helped him notice a trend forming years before the recent AI frenzy: large-scale computing facilities were emerging as one of the most efficient ways to use excess electricity generated by renewable energy projects. While working with investors financing energy infrastructure in Australia, Payne traveled to inspect a potential facility and stayed for two weeks studying the operation. “I left with a letter of intent to acquire a project,” he told The Times. At the time, the site was operating as a Bitcoin mine.