Nvidia-backed cloud-computing startup Lambda is raising up to $4 billion in what would be its final private funding round before a planned initial public offering, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The new round values Lambda at $14.5 billion excluding the money raised, according to the report. Investment firms Blackstone and Coatue Management are leading the financing, both of which have been heavily active in artificial intelligence and data-center deals.
Lambda's management is targeting a 2027 stock-market debut, subject to execution and market conditions, according to a letter sent to the company's limited partners and reviewed by the Journal.

A $50 billion backlog — and one very large customer

The letter also shows Lambda's order backlog — work committed by customers but not yet delivered — grew from $15 billion in June to $50 billion in September. 
Much of that surge appears to be driven by a single commitment: a roughly $35 billion deal with Anthropic signed in late August, according to the report.
That concentration raises questions about how durable the valuation is if Anthropic's payments falter, but with reliable GPU capacity still scarce, investors appear willing to bet on providers with large contracts from major AI labs. Lambda declined to comment on the report.

Built for public-market scrutiny

Since the spring, Lambda has been reshaping its leadership in ways that suggest preparation for public markets.
In May, the company replaced co-founder Stephen Balaban as chief executive with Michel Combes, a veteran operator formerly of Brightspeed, SoftBank International, Sprint and Alcatel-Lucent, with Balaban moving into the chief technology officer role.
The company has also drawn talent from the telecommunications industry, adding AT&T chief executive John Donovan to its board and hiring Charles Fisher — formerly of Charter Communications and car-sharing service Turo — as chief financial officer.

The neocloud gold rush

Lambda is one of a growing group of so-called neoclouds: digital infrastructure companies that buy graphics-processing units and other AI chips, then lease computing power to customers building or running large language models.
Demand is not the problem for these firms — paying for data-center buildouts is, and the spending is largely funded by debt. Lambda raised an additional $1 billion in debt financing last week, according to reports.
If it goes public, Lambda will join Nvidia-backed peers CoreWeave and Nebius, which now depend on healthy stock prices to fund their own data-center expansions. British neocloud Nscale filed for an IPO last month and is expected to begin trading soon, setting the competitive tone for Lambda's own debut.
By Hamza Faisal