Roxy Jacenko‘s husband Oliver Curtis has staged a dramatic comeback after serving jail time, winning backing from US technology giant Nvidia for his AI-driven data company ahead of its planned public listing.
Curtis, 40, co-founded Firmus with Tim Rosenfield in 2019, starting with just a $250,000 investment.
Now, Nvidia and local investment house Ellerston Capital have backed a $330million funding round, valuing the Singapore-based business at $1.9billion.
Firmus is now counted among a handful of private Australian companies valued above $1billion, including Canva, Rokt and Airwallex.
Originally launched as a bitcoin mining venture, Firmus pivoted into AI-focused data centres.
The company has built a software platform that manages every aspect of a data centre and claims to have developed cooling technology that uses 60 per cent less energy than competitors.
With its new capital, Firmus plans to build a massive data centre hub in Tasmania, pitched as an ‘AI factory’ – to power, train and operate next-generation AI systems with its in-house software and cooling technology.
The development is said to attract up to $2.1bn in its first stage and create up to 100 direct jobs.
Roxy Jacenko’s husband Oliver Curtis has secured the largest equity capital raising deal for his AI-led company, Firmus, in Australia this year
‘AI Factories are purpose-built to power, train and inference artificial intelligences,’ Mr Curtis told The Mercury.
‘With Tasmania’s clean energy and our AI Factory platform, we believe this will be the most cost-effective, sustainable AI facility in the world,’ Mr Curtis said.
‘Project Southgate will form the foundation of Australia’s artificial intelligence infrastructure and secure our place as the Asia-Pacific region’s AI hub.’
AI tools like ChatGPT run on tokens that are currently heavy on energy and emissions.
‘Producing these AI tokens in Tasmania will create a new type of green AI token – clean and powered by renewables – enabling AI to scale sustainably,’ Mr Rosenfield said.
It marks a remarkable turnaround for Curtis, who was jailed for insider trading in 2016.
He was sentenced to two years in prison after conspiring with then-best friend John Hartman to make nearly $1.5 million through illegal trades.
Speaking about his time in prison Curtis told the Daily Telegraph: ‘It was tough, but you come out a stronger person. It was something that I could not prepare for, something you cannot plan for.
‘That is something that I would not wish on anybody. It was an experience, one that I have put behind me.’
The conviction saw him banned from managing corporations for several years, effectively ending his early finance career.
The $330million investment from US technology giant Nvidia, catapulted Firmus to unicorn status (pictured Firmus co-chief executives Oliver Curtis and Tim Rosenfield)
Just a week after Curtis’ sentencing, Jacenko, then 37, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She told their children Pixie and Hunter their father was ‘doing business in China’ while he was behind bars.
When he was released in 2017 after serving one year of his sentence, seeing his family again was a defining moment.
‘I hugged the kids and gave Roxy a kiss and a cuddle and for us then everything was behind us. They are definitely my number-one priority and will always be my number-one priority. Family is the most important thing in my life and the kids and Rox mean the world to me.’
Curtis father is Nick Curtis, a well-known Sydney mining entrepreneur.
