New Momentum Partners
All insights
Buyer Spotlight20 October 2026 · 6 min read

Nebius

The GPU cloud that is buying its way up the AI stack.

Nebius has spent 2026 buying the software layers above its GPUs. We map the deals, assess the strategy behind them and look at where the AI cloud market and its adjacent segments are heading.

$3.0bn
Annualised run-rate revenue

End of June 2026

+454%
Revenue growth, year on year

Q2 2026

4
AI stack deals in 8 months

Feb to Oct 2026

$40bn+
Customer commitments

Q2 2026 letter

01Who they are

From GPU data centres to an AI cloud with agentic infrastructure.

Nebius is an Amsterdam-headquartered AI cloud. It builds and runs its own GPU data centres in Europe and the US, and has moved from renting capacity to a full AI cloud, managed inference and agentic tools for AI builders and enterprises.
Headquarters
Amsterdam
Listing
Nasdaq: NBIS, since Oct 2024
Founder and CEO
Arkady Volozh
Market cap
c. $47bn (20 Oct 2026)

Products

  • Nebius AI Cloud (Aether 3.6)GPU clusters, networking and AI storage with enterprise security and governance
  • Token FactoryManaged inference for open and custom models, with fine-tuning
  • TavilyAgentic search API giving AI agents real-time web access
  • Serverless AI & orchestrationRun jobs and endpoints without managing infrastructure
  • DataOps & ModelOpsData transfer, pipelines and model lifecycle tools
  • Nebius EchoAn AI agent that helps teams manage their infrastructure
  1. Oct 2024Nebius Group trades on Nasdaq as NBIS
  2. Dec 2024Raises $700m from Accel, NVIDIA and Orbis
  3. Sep 2025Microsoft capacity deal, $17.4bn to $19.4bn over five years
  4. Nov 2025First Meta deal (c. $3bn) and launch of Token Factory, its inference platform
  5. Feb 2026Agrees to buy Tavily, an agentic search API
  6. Mar 2026NVIDIA invests $2bn; second Meta deal worth up to $27bn
  7. May 2026Eigen AI (c. $643m) and Clarifai’s core team and inference IP
  8. Jul 2026Asset-light partner model; first secured debt ($775m)
  9. Aug 2026Closes $5.75bn of convertible notes
  10. Sep 2026Palantir names Nebius its preferred sovereign AI infrastructure partner
  11. Oct 2026Buys Inferize, which makes inference capacity elastic
  12. Oct 2026Launches public GPU spot pricing; $3.5bn secured facility with Citi

Selected customers

  • Microsoft
  • Meta
  • Cohere
  • Reflection
  • Revolut
  • monday.com
  • Higgsfield
  • AMI
  • Basecamp Research

Strategic partners

  • NVIDIA
  • Palantir
  • Bloom Energy
  • Infrastructure partners
02The numbers

Growth the market is paying for, with volatility to match.

Revenue grew more than fivefold in a year and the share price is up about eightfold since listing, with sharp swings around each mega-deal and financing.

NBIS · monthly close, USD

$171.45

Oct 2026

Since listing
8.0x
2026 to date
+105%
52-week range
$74 – $300
Oct 2024Apr 2025Oct 2025Apr 2026Oct 2026
Month-end closing prices; October 2026 is the close on 20 October. Since listing compares with the October 2024 close. Sources: Digrin, Google Finance, Benzinga. Hover or drag across the chart for any month.
  • Sep 2025Microsoft deal
  • Nov 2025First Meta deal
  • Mar 2026NVIDIA $2bn · Meta up to $27bn
  • Jun 2026Peak close, $276
$582m
Group revenue

Q2 2026, +454% YoY

$3.0bn
Run-rate revenue (ARR)

End of June 2026

41%
Adjusted EBITDA margin

Q2 2026, group

$5.7bn
Capex in one quarter

Q2 2026

5 GW
Contracted power target

End of 2026

$20–25bn
Capex guidance

Full year 2026

Quarterly revenue

Group revenue, USD millions

Q2 25Q3 25Q4 25Q1 26Q2 26
Continuing operations, as reported in Nebius shareholder letters and results.

Run-rate revenue (ARR)

USD billions; dashed bar is the end-2026 guidance range ($7bn to $9bn)

Sep 25Dec 25Mar 26Jun 26Dec 26
Core AI cloud ARR as reported; the end-2026 bar shows the midpoint of company guidance.
03The acquisition map

Every 2026 deal sits above the GPU.

Nebius owns the bottom of the stack: power, data centres and NVIDIA compute. What it buys is software and teams for the layers above. Select a deal to see what it adds.
  1. L7

    Agents & applications

    Agentic search and tools that AI builders use to ship agents.

  2. L6

    Models & research

    A frontier research team under Clarifai’s founder; day-one support for new open models.

  3. L5

    Inference & optimisation

    Token Factory: managed inference for open and custom models.

  4. L4

    Training, tools & MLOps

    Data and model ops, serverless AI and an infrastructure agent (Echo) inside the cloud.

  5. L3

    Cloud platform

    Aether: managed clusters, storage, security and governance for enterprises.

  6. L2

    Compute & networking

    NVIDIA GB300 and early Vera Rubin systems; own hardware designs.

  7. L1

    Data centres & power

    Owned AI factories in Europe and the US, plus colocation and partner sites.

AcquisitionFeb 2026

Tavily

Agentic search API that gives AI agents real-time web access. Grew from 1m to more than 2.5m developers by mid-2026.

Value
Undisclosed (reported c. $275m)
Base
Israel
Layer
Agents & applications
Status
Completed, Q1 2026

Puts search and grounding next to inference, so builders get reasoning and real-time data from one vendor.

  • Acquisition
  • Team + IP
  • Partnership
  • Investment
  • Reported
04The strategy

From selling GPU hours to owning the stack.

Nebius started as a capacity business. Its 2026 deals have moved it up the stack, towards the layers where AI builders spend most of their time: inference, optimisation and agents.
  1. 2024 – 2025

    Capacity

    Build and own AI data centres. Long-term GPU contracts with Microsoft and Meta fund the buildout.

  2. 2025 – 2026

    AI cloud

    The Aether platform adds managed clusters, storage, security and governance for enterprises and AI natives.

  3. 2026 →

    Full-stack AI platform

    Token Factory inference, optimisation (Eigen, Clarifai, Inferize), agentic search (Tavily) and sovereign deployments (Palantir).

Capacity

5 GW

Contracted power targeted for end-2026, with over 1 GW a year deployed from 2027.

Platform

4 deals

Inference, optimisation and agent tooling bought in 2026.

Demand

$40bn+

Customer commitments; capacity has been sold out ahead of delivery.

Capital

$9bn+

Customer prepayments expected in 2026, alongside converts and secured debt.

Nebius is a technology company with its own expertise in every layer, from infrastructure to inference and agentic platforms.
Arkady Volozh · Founder & CEO, Q1 2026 letter · paraphrased
The goal is to be a full platform for AI builders, not just the infrastructure underneath them.
Roman Chernin · Co-founder & CBO, Feb 2026 · paraphrased
Good inference takes more than fast GPUs: the whole system has to respond when demand changes.
Danila Shtan · CTO, Oct 2026 · paraphrased
AI computing prices are rising, and Nebius could sell all of its planned 2027 capacity at today’s prices.
Marc Boroditsky · CRO, CNBC, Oct 2026 · paraphrased
05Our take

They buy whatever makes each GPU earn more.

Our reading of the 2026 deals: Nebius is not buying revenue. It is buying small, technical teams that raise utilisation, improve token economics and keep developers on its platform.
  • 4AI stack deals in eight months, February to October 2026
  • 3 of 4in inference and optimisation
  • $643mlargest disclosed deal (Eigen AI, cash and shares)
  • Teamsfounders join in senior roles; Tavily kept its brand

Where we think they could buy next

  1. 01

    Inference efficiency

    Scheduling, memory and KV-cache, compilers and serving: anything that gets more tokens out of every GPU.

  2. 02

    Agent infrastructure

    Sandboxes, memory, evaluation and observability around agents, next to Tavily’s search.

  3. 03

    Data and retrieval

    Pipelines, vector search and grounding that go beyond the open web.

  4. 04

    Enterprise control

    Security, governance and sovereign deployment tooling for regulated buyers.

06The segment

Same GPUs, different bets.

GPU capacity alone is becoming a commodity. Each neocloud is moving away from it in its own direction.
Where each company is moving: down the stack towards power and sites, or up towards software and agents
  • ← Down the stackUp the stack →

  • Nebius

    Buys software and teams above the GPU

  • CoreWeave

    Turns its GPU fleet into a software platform

  • Lambda

    Pure capacity; stepped back from inference

  • Firmus

    Owns the build, from modules to power

How each one covers the stack
  • Acquired
  • Built
  • Partner
  • Exited or attempted
  • Not covered
PowerGPUCloudToolsInfer.ModelsAgents

Nebius

$3.0bn ARR · Jun 2026

4 acquisitions

CoreWeave

$2.6bn revenue · Q2 2026

5 acquisitions

Lambda

$50bn backlog · reported

0 acquisitions

Firmus

900 MW+ contracted

1 acquisitions

Hover or tap a block to see what sits there. Snapshot from public announcements to 22 October 2026; layer placement is our own classification.

07The next 12 months

Where we think the segment goes next.

Our assumptions, based on the deals and announcements above. Not forecasts of any company’s plans.
  1. 01

    More inference tuck-ins

    The deals that pay back fastest are the ones that get more tokens out of every GPU. We expect more small, often undisclosed buys of inference and optimisation teams.

    Signal · Nebius bought three in five months; CoreWeave guides managed inference to $250m+ ARR

  2. 02

    Developer tools and agents next

    AI clouds want builders to work on their platform, not only rent from it: notebooks, evaluation, RL training, sandboxes and search.

    Signal · CoreWeave’s W&B, OpenPipe, Marimo and Forge; Nebius’s Tavily

  3. 03

    Fewer mega-deals, more structured money

    Balance sheets are stretched. Large stock-funded data centre deals look harder; converts, secured debt and prepayments fill the gap.

    Signal · Core Scientific vote, CoreWeave bond selloff, Firmus IPO withdrawn

  4. 04

    Two camps, valued differently

    Full-stack platforms with software revenue on one side, pure capacity providers on the other. We expect investors to price them apart.

    Signal · Lambda closed its inference API while Nebius and CoreWeave bought up

  5. 05

    Teams that move the roadmap

    AI clouds are buying teams as much as products: founders and engineers who can ship the next layer faster than it could be hired for or built in-house.

    Signal · Eigen AI founders open a Bay Area hub; Clarifai’s founder leads research; Tavily kept its team and brand

  6. 06

    Sovereign and enterprise routes to market

    Regulated buyers want control of data and models. Security, governance and on-premises tooling could become targets.

    Signal · Palantir–Nebius; CoreWeave Omni in customers’ own data centres

For founders

Is your technology a missing layer?

If your product can jump-start an AI cloud’s roadmap or fill a layer missing from its stack, buyers like these are active now. We are happy to walk you through your options, starting with an assessment of where you stand, and discuss the strategic paths open to you.

Talk to us

Important information

  • This Buyer Spotlight is New Momentum Partners’ own analysis and opinion, based only on publicly available information as of 22 October 2026. It does not use any non-public information.
  • Naming a company does not imply any engagement, mandate or relationship with New Momentum Partners, and no company named has reviewed or endorsed this article.
  • Views on strategy, likely acquisition targets and the next 12 months are our assumptions and interpretation of public trends. They are not statements of, or predictions about, any company’s actual plans.
  • This is not investment, legal, tax or financial advice, and not an offer, solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. Do your own research and consult your own advisers.
  • Figures come from company filings, releases and third-party sources for the dates stated. They may be unaudited, restated or out of date, and share prices change daily. Past performance is no guide to future returns.
  • Executive statements are paraphrased from public sources and may not reflect exact wording. Deal values marked “reported” come from press reports and have not been confirmed by the companies.
  • Stack-layer classifications are our own simplification. Company names and trademarks belong to their owners.
  • New Momentum Partners accepts no liability for decisions made on the basis of this article.

Sources

  1. 1.Nebius: Q2 2026 letter to shareholders (SEC 6-K, Aug 2026)
  2. 2.Nebius: Q1 2026 letter to shareholders (SEC 6-K, May 2026)
  3. 3.Nebius: Q3 2025 letter to shareholders (SEC 6-K, Nov 2025)
  4. 4.MarketBeat: Nebius Q4 2025 earnings call highlights (Feb 2026)
  5. 5.Zacks via Yahoo Finance: Nebius’s four-pronged strategy (Jul 2026)
  6. 6.Nebius: agreement to acquire Tavily (10 Feb 2026)
  7. 7.Globes: Nebius buys Tavily, reported $275m (10 Feb 2026)
  8. 8.Globes: Nebius in talks to acquire AI21 Labs, report (9 Apr 2026)
  9. 9.Nebius: agreement to acquire Eigen AI (1 May 2026)
  10. 10.Nebius: completes acquisition of Eigen AI (16 Jun 2026)
  11. 11.Nebius: Clarifai’s core team and inference IP (12 May 2026)
  12. 12.Nebius: acquires Inferize (1 Oct 2026)
  13. 13.Nebius: asset-light infrastructure partnership model (15 Jul 2026)
  14. 14.Nebius: Palantir sovereign AI partnership (8 Sep 2026)
  15. 15.Nebius newsroom: financing and product releases, 2026
  16. 16.Amsterdam startup map: NVIDIA $2bn investment and Meta / Microsoft contracts (May 2026)
  17. 17.TechCrunch: Nebius raises $700m from NVIDIA, Accel and others (2 Dec 2024)
  18. 18.Accel Spotlight On: Arkady Volozh on building in the agentic era (May 2026)
  19. 19.Digrin: NBIS monthly price history
  20. 20.Google Finance: NBIS quote, 19 Oct 2026
  21. 21.Benzinga: Nebius says it faces less debt risk than CoreWeave (21 Oct 2026)
  22. 22.Yahoo Finance: Nebius secures $3.5bn financing facility with Citi (22 Oct 2026)
  23. 23.GuruFocus: Nebius launches public GPU spot pricing (21 Oct 2026)
  24. 24.Motley Fool: Nebius Q2 2026 earnings call transcript (guidance)
  25. 25.Nebius investor hub
  26. 26.CoreWeave: Q2 2026 results (11 Aug 2026)
  27. 27.MarketBeat: CoreWeave Q2 2026 earnings call highlights
  28. 28.Stock Analysis: CoreWeave market cap (Oct 2026)
  29. 29.TechCrunch: CoreWeave acquires Weights & Biases (4 Mar 2025)
  30. 30.CoreWeave: comment on Core Scientific stockholder vote (30 Oct 2025)
  31. 31.CoreWeave: to acquire OpenPipe (3 Sep 2025)
  32. 32.CoreWeave: to acquire Monolith (6 Oct 2025)
  33. 33.CoreWeave: acquires Marimo (30 Oct 2025)
  34. 34.SiliconANGLE: CoreWeave acquires Conductor (25 Jan 2023)
  35. 35.Data Center Knowledge: CoreWeave targets enterprises with Forge (Sep 2026)
  36. 36.Lambda: sunsetting Chat and Inference (Sep 2025)
  37. 37.TechCrunch: Lambda to raise $4bn ahead of planned IPO (6 Oct 2026)
  38. 38.DCD: Lambda seeks $3bn round ahead of IPO plans (Aug 2026)
  39. 39.DCD: Lambda plans data centre in Oklahoma (Sep 2026)
  40. 40.Lambda investor page
  41. 41.Firmus: to acquire Benmax’s fabrication, design and projects businesses (13 Aug 2026)
  42. 42.Firmus: 900 MW contracted, OpenAI anchor customer (8 Sep 2026)
  43. 43.TelecomTV: Firmus US$2bn strategic equity investment (Aug 2026)
  44. 44.Forbes Australia: Firmus IPO withdrawn (Oct 2026)
  45. 45.Bloomberg Government: Firmus explores $3bn private round after shelving IPO (Oct 2026)
  46. 46.Business Wire: Firmus and Rafay partnership (29 Sep 2025)
  47. 47.Firmus: Fireworks partners with Firmus AI Cloud (Aug 2026)

Newsletter

Stay close to the technology M&A market.

Selected perspectives, sent directly to your inbox. Occasional insights. No noise.

More insights

All insights →