By Anton Bridge
TOKYO, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Data centre developer SB Energy, backed by SoftBank Group, will sell up to $500 million in shares to Japanese investors as part of a public listing in the U.S., as per a filing released on Tuesday.
The company plans to issue new shares to Japanese investors, with funds earmarked for general operating costs, data centre development, power generation, and related infrastructure projects. However, the filing did not disclose the size of the U.S. IPO, although sources suggest that SoftBank may aim for a valuation of $50 billion for SB Energy.
Chipmaker Nvidia has pledged to invest $1.5 billion in a private placement at the IPO price, while OpenAI has received warrants valued at approximately $5.5 billion, according to SB Energy’s investment prospectus released earlier this month.
The growing enthusiasm for artificial intelligence has sparked a series of public listings in related companies this year, including SpaceX’s listing in June and Anthropic’s planned listing later in the year.
Japanese investors also secured $2.2 billion worth of SpaceX shares during its IPO.
(Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Tom Hogue and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
