Lambda to raise up to $4B at $14.5B pre-money valuation ahead of planned 2027 IPO

Cloud provider Lambda is raising up to $4 billion at a $14.5 billion pre-money valuation — the company's value before the new investment — according to The Wall Street Journal, as cited by TechCrunch. Coatue Management and Blackstone are leading the round, TechCrunch reported. Citing the Journal, TechCrunch reported that the round could be Lambda's last private fundraising before a planned 2027 initial public offering. Lambda, Coatue and Blackstone did not immediately respond to a request for comment, TechCrunch reported.

A letter to investors reviewed by the Journal showed Lambda's backlog — the value of customer commitments not yet fulfilled — grew from $15 billion in June to $50 billion in September, TechCrunch reported. TechCrunch reported that much of that increase appears to be driven by a $35 billion commitment from Anthropic, which signed a deal with Lambda in late August. TechCrunch reported that Lambda's valuation could therefore lean heavily on Anthropic's ability to keep paying.

TechCrunch reported that Lambda raised an additional $1 billion in debt last week. Data center buildouts are largely funded by debt, and lenders are becoming more selective about whom they lend to and on what terms, according to TechCrunch. TechCrunch reported that raising more now sets the tone for Lambda's IPO pricing and gives it access to capital before public-market scrutiny arrives.

Lambda was reportedly meant to go public this year but pushed that back amid market uncertainty, TechCrunch reported. It would join other Nvidia-backed neoclouds — companies that provide GPU computing capacity — such as CoreWeave and Nebius, which TechCrunch reported depend on the health of their stock to fund data center buildouts. British neocloud Nscale filed for an IPO last month and is expected to begin trading soon, TechCrunch reported.