Sharon AI admits ASX delay after it banks billions from ‘very well bid’ US raise
The Nasdaq-listed Australian neocloud is taking longer than planned to land on the ASX — but not because of a lack of demand among investors.
Competition for capital may be intensifying following the record-breaking market debut of SpaceX and ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic’s touted megafloats, but Sharon AI co-founder and CEO James Manning is still brimming with confidence after successfully locking in billions of dollars of fresh capital.
The Australian neocloud on Thursday announced it had secured USD1.6 billion ($2.27 billion) in new equity and convertible debt in a round more than seven times the size of its Nasdaq IPO which Manning said was oversubscribed by “more than two times [but] less than six times”.
“It was very, very well bid, you know, we had to carefully manage that process…I think that reflected both the demand profile, but also a real emphasis from our investors to accelerate the rate at which we’re growing,” Manning told Capital Brief.
The raise was anchored by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund Situational Awareness and funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management as well as a slew of new and returning investors.
