VAST Data has closed a Series F financing round valuing the company at US$30 billion (about A$42 billion), more than triple its US$9.1 billion Series E valuation in late 2023.
The round was led by Drive Capital with Access Industries as co-lead, and included participation from existing investors including Fidelity Management & Research Company, NEA and NVIDIA, alongside new investors, according to the company.
VAST said the transaction totalled about US$1 billion, comprising primary and secondary capital. The company said the primary proceeds will be used to fund global growth and pursue strategic transactions to expand its technology footprint and partnerships.
The financing is relevant to Australian AI infrastructure providers including Firmus, which is due for an IPO in 2026 and uses VAST’s technology in its sovereign AI factories, and Sharon AI, which is using VAST to support large GPU clusters for its sovereign AI infrastructure.
VAST also reported it has surpassed US$4 billion in cumulative bookings and ended the previous fiscal year with more than US$500 million in committed annual recurring revenue (CARR), alongside positive operating margin and free cash flow.
In a statement, VAST CEO Renen Hallak said: “We are already supporting AI environments spanning millions of GPUs globally, operating across every layer of the AI stack. What is becoming clear is that these layers are no longer independent. Applications, models, and infrastructure now operate as a single system through data. VAST sits at the centre of how that system works, which is why we are seeing this level of demand at global scale.”
Drive Capital co-founder and partner Chris Olsen said the valuation increase reflected investor confidence in infrastructure companies supporting large-scale AI adoption. “The scale and speed of AI adoption are creating a new class of infrastructure company,” Olsen said. “The step-change in valuation reflects both that momentum and our conviction in VAST’s role at the centre of this market.”
Other customer and partner statements included comments from Mistral AI co-founder and CTO Timothée Lacroix, JPMorganChase managing director Larry Feinsmith, and Crusoe SVP Product Management Erwan Menard, who pointed to data platform and storage requirements associated with training and inference workloads.
