Nscale IPO: investors push for $16B-$19B, not $30B

Some investors in Nscale want the AI cloud company to accept a stock market valuation of $16 billion to $19 billion, Bloomberg reported on October 18, 2026. Nscale has been seeking about $30 billion for its planned New York listing. That range is well below the asking price, at a time when listings of companies that rent out AI chips are struggling.

What was reported

Nscale is a UK company that runs data centers and rents their AI computing power to other firms. It plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NSCL, according to The Next Web, which cites Bloomberg's report. A group of investors argues that $16 billion to $19 billion would be more likely to attract buyers than $30 billion.

Nothing is settled. No decisions on the listing have been made, and Nscale has not formally started marketing its shares. PYMNTS reports that the company is still answering comments from the US Securities and Exchange Commission on the filing it made on September 18. Nscale had not responded to The Next Web's request for comment.

The pressure also reached Nscale's backers. Shares in Aker, a Norwegian investment company and major Nscale shareholder, fell nearly 5% in Monday's trading, according to MarketScreener.

The numbers behind the doubt

A backlog is the value of contracts a company has signed but not yet fully delivered. Nscale's is large, but very little of it is earning money yet. The figures below come from the reports cited:

Figure	Amount
Valuation Nscale has sought	About $30 billion
Range some investors suggest	$16 billion to $19 billion
Last private valuation (Trending Topics)	$14.6 billion
Signed and active contracts (The Next Web)	$103.4 billion
Backlog from contracts already running (Trending Topics)	$2.6 billion
Revenue, first half of the year	$140.6 million
Net loss, first half of the year	About $1 billion
Share of contracts from Microsoft and Anthropic	About 85%
Pre-IPO convertible notes raised in September	$3.36 billion

Convertible notes are loans that turn into shares later. The Next Web reports that the conversion price for Nscale's notes is capped at a $30 billion valuation.

Why investors got cautious

Three problems sit behind the pushback. First, Microsoft reportedly pulled out of Nscale's Loughton data center in Essex, a site that may not get grid power until the 2030s. Second, Nscale's site in Norway is about six months behind schedule, The Next Web says.

Third, the market for these companies has turned. Australia's Firmus pulled its IPO earlier this month, and CoreWeave shares fell about 25% last week. Firms like these are often called "neoclouds": new cloud providers built around renting AI chips. Industry executives expect only seven to 10 of them to survive, The Information reported, as cited by Trending Topics.

Nscale is still signing deals. PYMNTS notes a multi-year computing agreement with Figure, a humanoid robot developer, worth at least $3.5 billion and up to $6 billion. "We've seen incredible growth with inference and agentic AI and Figure is pushing the boundaries of AI even further," said Josh Payne, Nscale's founder and CEO.

What this means for developers

For teams that rent AI computing power from Nscale or similar providers:

Separate signed capacity from running capacity. Only $2.6 billion of Nscale's $103 billion backlog comes from contracts already running. When a provider quotes its scale, ask how much of it is serving customers today.
Put delivery dates in the contract. Delays in Norway and the grid problem at Loughton show that new sites slip. If your project depends on new capacity, ask what happens when it arrives late.
Keep a second provider ready. A neocloud that raises less money than planned may build more slowly. Keep workloads portable enough to move if capacity does not show up.
Watch the price range. When Nscale sets a price range for its shares, it will appear in its SEC filing. That number will show which side of this argument won.

This article was first published on Tech AI Wire.