Fermi America secures $350m in financing led by Macquarie Group

Energy and AI infrastructure developer Fermi America has closed a $100 million Series C equity round and a $250 million senior loan facility, both led by Macquarie, to accelerate construction of its HyperGrid Project in Texas

Fermi America has raised a combined $350 million in new financing, including a $100 million Series C preferred equity round and a $250 million senior loan facility. Both were led by Macquarie Group, with $100 million of the loan drawn at closing.

The funds will support the development of the HyperGrid Project, which Fermi America describes as the world’s largest behind-the-meter artificial intelligence private grid campus. The project is being developed in partnership with the Texas Tech University System.

Speaking last week, Toby Neugebauer, co-founder and chief executive of Fermi America, said: “Macquarie’s leadership in both our Series C and senior loan facility underscores their conviction that our speed of execution is based on our team’s experience in real-time power generation and construction. Like generations of entrepreneurs and workforces before us from this very region, we are delivering on energy promises made so that America can win again.”

Joshua Stevens, managing director in Macquarie’s Commodities and Global Markets business, added: “We are excited to be supporting Fermi America in the development of its power and data center platform. Its distinctive strategy and ability to tap into near-term power solutions make it well placed to address the fast-growing needs of AI and other high-performance computing applications.”

The combined equity and loan financing is intended to strengthen Fermi America’s ability to secure long-lead supply chain assets, expand its team of subject matter experts, and begin phase one construction of the HyperGrid Project.

Fermi America was co-founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Toby Neugebauer, previously co-managing partner of Quantum Energy. 

The company is developing next-generation private grids designed to deliver highly redundant power at gigawatt scale to support artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. The planned campus is expected to integrate nuclear, combined-cycle natural gas, utility grid power, solar and battery storage.

The Texas Tech University System, Fermi’s partner on the project, is a $3 billion higher education enterprise with 64,000 students, 21,000 employees and more than 400,000 alumni. 

Headquartered in Lubbock, it operates five universities and has an estimated statewide economic impact of $19.2 billion.

Main image: Rendering of the Fermi America Private Grid Campus. Photo: Fermi America