Megaport

🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #180, 4th October 2026

Weekly roundup reporting Australian startup funding rounds and government grants, a venture fund close, agreed acquisitions, an IPO pricing, a collapse, plus executive hires and AI policy developments.

AI data centre startup Firmus just raised another $2.85 billion at a whopping $15B valuation

Firmus has secured a further US$2bn at a $15bn valuation from Coatue, Nvidia, Blackstone and Jane Street, taking its 12-month capital intake past US$3bn to fund Australian AI data centre projects.

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Megaport raises $594M to build AI inference cloud, secures four US contracts

Megaport, a network-infrastructure firm based in Australia, has won four US contracts for AI computing and plans a shareholder entitlement offer to fund a new GPU inference cloud service.

AI data centre startup Firmus eyes off another $725 million raise as it readies to IPO on the ASX

Sydney-founded AI data centre company Firmus, now Singapore-based, says Coatue and Nvidia are set to back its next US$505 million raise before a planned ASX listing, after earlier raises including Nvidia's A$330 million.

Also SmartCompany·SmartCompany·iTnews

Firmus appoints new CFO & chair after USD $330 million raise

Firmus Technologies names Kirsty Godfrey-Billy CFO and Grant Dempsey incoming chair after a recent US$330m equity raise, and advances its Tasmanian AI campus project with the state government.

Leading Edge DC secures $30M for regional network rollout

Leading Edge Data Centres has received a 30 million dollar equity investment from DigitalBridge Group to speed up its regional Australian edge data centre expansion over the next two years.