Another pre-IPO raise on the cards for Firmus Technologies

Firmus Technologies co-founders Tim Rosenfield, left, and Oliver Curtis.

Artificial intelligence infrastructure group Firmus Technologies is believed to be embarking on another pre-IPO funding round before it moves to launch an initial public offering in the first half of next year, according to market sources.

Expectations are that the initial public offering size will be over $1bn, with the company’s value about double that amount.

But before then, there’s talk in the market Firmus may once again go cap in hand to investors to fund growth.

Major Wall Street banks and other investment banks have been pitching for the IPO, but one question is whether the key head office decision makers of the institutions allow them to take a mandate, given founder and managing director Oliver Curtis is a convicted criminal, sentenced to two years jail in 2016 for insider trading.

He is the husband of famous publicist Roxy Jacenko, and son of former Macquarie banker and mining executive Nick Curtis.

The top US-based investment banks are highly sensitive about such matters and have strict rules over what deals they can take on, as they take their stance surrounding ethical investing seriously.

That may open up an opportunity for an Australian bank such as Macquarie Capital or Barrenjoey.

Still, JPMorgan was down to host the company at its recent artificial intelligence conference before Firmus pulled out at the final hour.

So far, it’s been Australian advisers Morgans and Highbury Partnership working for the business.

Sources close to the company say that Mr Curtis has no plans to step down from the chief executive role and believe investors remain supportive given the strong fundamentals of the business.

If it is the case that a Wall Street bank gets involved, sources believe that JPMorgan and Citi could be likely contenders, with groups, nevertheless, known to have been pitching relentlessly.

Its last pre-IPO raise of $330m valued the Grant Dempsey-chaired company at $1.85bn.

Firmus describes itself as a world leader in integrated, “liquid-everywhere” AI factories and the provision of Graphics Processing Units-as-a-Service to global hyperscalers and other major customers.

Among its shareholders are Nvidia, which it counts as a cloud partner, and Ellerston Capital. Tim Rosenfield and Oliver Curtis are co-chief executives.

Firmus, with Nvidia and $17bn local player CDC Data Centres, will roll out what it claims could be $73.3bn worth of huge AI data centres across Australia by 2028.