Graphic: GPTOnline, using Nebius assets
Nebius moved on Thursday to shore up its funding as debt markets turn hostile to the AI infrastructure trade. The Amsterdam-based AI cloud company said it has secured a $3.5 billion financing facility from Citi to fund continued development of its data centers and GPU purchases, Reuters reported.
The facility matures in 364 days and carries an initial interest rate of 2.75% over the term SOFR benchmark rate. Nebius said the financing would give it greater flexibility over the timing and structure of further fundraising to support growth in 2027 and beyond. Its funding sources also include customer prepayments and operating cash flow.
“This facility provides additional financing to support our near-term capacity build-out,” Chief Operating Officer Ophir Nave said in a statement.
Backed by $40 Billion in Contracts
Nebius pointed to deeper financing options behind the new facility. Nave said the company could borrow against more than $40 billion in long-term contracts with investment-grade customers, which include Microsoft and Meta.
Graphic: GPTOnline, using Nebius assets
The announcement lands against a difficult backdrop for the so-called neoclouds, the cluster of AI-focused cloud companies building data centers specialized for AI workloads. Bonds issued by rival CoreWeave fell sharply in value last week, and Reuters reported that investors betting against US neocloud and data center companies have raked in $6 billion in paper profits so far this month on fears their debt-fueled AI buildout is becoming unsustainable.
Nebius is usually grouped with CoreWeave among the top neocloud firms. The company has around $10 billion in convertible bond debt outstanding following a $5.75 billion issue in August.
Why It Matters
The financing is a defensive move as much as an expansion play. With interest rates rising and investors scrutinizing the debt behind the AI buildout, locking in a large bank facility from Citi gives Nebius breathing room: it can keep buying GPUs and building capacity now while deciding later, and on better terms, how to fund its 2027 growth.
It also illustrates how the AI infrastructure boom is being financed in layers. Equity rounds grab the headlines, but for neoclouds the binding constraint is credit: long-term customer contracts with names like Microsoft and Meta are what turn into bank facilities, and bank facilities are what turn into data centers. Nebius just showed the mechanism working in real time.
