Crusoe Raises $1.375 Billion to Enhance AI Infrastructure Supporting OpenAI Translation: Crusoe Raises $1.375 Billion to Enhance AI Infrastructure Supporting OpenAI

The company Crusoe, which previously focused on Bitcoin mining, has raised $1.375 billion in a Series E funding round led by Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners.

These funds will be utilized to expand vertically integrated data center infrastructure aimed at supporting the AI sector.

In September, Crusoe launched the first phase of its flagship campus in Abilene, Texas, in collaboration with the Stargate project, a joint venture involving OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle. As part of the initiative announced by U.S. President Donald Trump in January, which calls for a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure over four years with an initial $100 billion commitment, the data center in Abilene will have a project capacity of 1.2 GW. Plans include accommodating up to 400,000 powerful AI chips from Nvidia at this site.

Crusoe also operates data centers in Norway and Iceland, which support the high-performance computing cloud service Crusoe Cloud. In July, the firm announced plans to build an AI campus in Wyoming in partnership with Tallgrass, aimed at providing 1.8 GW of capacity.

Chase Lochmiller and Callie Cavaness established Crusoe in 2018 as a Bitcoin mining company, utilizing modular container systems powered by gas flaring during oil extraction.

In 2019, the startup attracted $4.5 million in a seed round with investments from the Winklevoss twins and Peter Thiel’s venture capital firms. By the end of that year, existing and new investors had increased their investment in the project by $70 million.

In 2022, the company concluded a Series C funding round amounting to $350 million, which was directed towards expanding its mining operations and launching the Crusoe Cloud platform. At that time, the firm also acquired the modular cryptocurrency mining system manufacturer Easter-Owens Electric and purchased 11 similar setups from Compute North, which had filed for bankruptcy.

In October 2024, Crusoe established a joint venture with Blue Owl Capital and Primary Digital Infrastructure, with a declared value of $3.4 billion, to develop the Lancium Clean Campus data center in Abilene, aimed at the HPC segment. This facility was intended for long-term leasing to a company from the Fortune 100 list, which later turned out to be Oracle.

In March 2025, the company sold its Bitcoin mining division to NYDIG, with neither party disclosing the deal’s terms. At that time, the division managed over 425 modular systems with a total capacity exceeding 250 MW and employed around 135 people across oil fields in seven U.S. states and Argentina.

The trend of Bitcoin miners diversifying into AI gained significant momentum following the halving in April 2024. As profitability in Bitcoin mining declined, cryptocurrency miners increasingly sought business opportunities in the high-margin AI segment, which also faced a capacity shortage.

One of the largest transactions in this direction was the acquisition in July of mining operator Core Scientific by AI hyperscaler CoreWeave for $9 billion.

In August, Google increased its stake in TeraWulf to 14% through an expansion of financial guarantees to $3.2 billion. In September, TeraWulf announced the attraction of $3 billion for its data center construction.

Around $193 million was invested in AI computing by IREN. CleanSpark announced a shift from «pure mining» to high-performance computing. According to media reports, MARA Holdings is also considering entering the AI infrastructure market through a $168 million deal. Along with Cango, these three companies form a kind of «club of 50 EH/s,» collectively controlling about 20% of Bitcoin’s network capacity.

In August, experts from GoMining predicted a wave of institutional investments in Bitcoin mining due to the boom in AI computing.