Nebius Lands $3.5 Billion Citi Facility for AI Buildout

By Grace Kim

Nebius Group secured a $3.5 billion, 364-day senior secured financing facility from Citi to fund data center development, GPU procurement and general corporate purposes.

The Amsterdam-based company said the additional capital will support continued expansion of its global AI infrastructure footprint and capacity for its AI cloud platform. Nebius also said its funding base includes customer prepayments, operating cash flow and other financing mechanisms.

What does the $3.5 billion facility fund?

Nebius Group listed three uses for the senior secured financing:

• Data center development.
• GPU procurement.
• General corporate purposes.

The company said the facility supports near-term expansion while preserving access to other capital for growth in 2027 and beyond. Nebius said it wants to diversify and sequence its funding sources, keeping flexibility over when and how it raises longer-term financing.

In practical terms, Citi capital helps fund the current buildout while Nebius retains other funding options for later growth.

What are the 364-day facility’s terms?

Nebius said the financing initially bears interest at Term SOFR plus 2.75% per year. The spread can increase to a maximum of 3.50% per year, subject to additional adjustments. The facility has a 364-day term.

Citi served as mandated lead arranger, agent and security agent, according to Nebius. The bank’s three roles cover the transaction’s arrangement, agency and security functions.

The 364-day maturity is shorter than the growth window Nebius highlighted, which extends to 2027 and beyond. The company structured the Citi facility as one layer in a broader funding plan rather than as its sole source of expansion capital.

The near-term financing therefore starts with a floating rate and carries a spread that can widen during the facility’s term.

How could $40 billion in commitments expand the funding base?

Nebius said it has more than $40 billion of investment-grade customer commitments under long-term contracts. The company is evaluating asset-backed financing supported by those commitments as its infrastructure requirements grow.

Those contracts sit alongside customer prepayments, operating cash flow and other mechanisms in Nebius’s funding strategy. The company said the mix allows near-term spending without committing every available source to the present buildout.

Ophir Nave, chief operating officer of Nebius, said:

“We continue to execute our funding strategy as planned, and are pleased to have secured this financing from a leading global financial institution.

This is a result of our disciplined approach to managing our balance sheet to fund our portfolio of projects, and once again demonstrates our ability to choose when and how we raise capital to support our growth.

Sequencing our financing is how we optimize our long-term cost of capital.

This facility provides additional financing to support our near-term capacity build-out.

We still have a range of capital sources available to us to finance the next phase of growth, including asset-backed financing based on investment-grade customer commitments of more than $40 billion of long-term contracts.”

The $40 billion represents customer commitments, not asset-backed financing that Nebius has already secured. The commitments could support another funding route, but the company has said it is still evaluating the structure.

What is Nebius building with the additional capital?

Nebius describes its offering as a full-stack AI cloud platform for developers and enterprises. The Amsterdam-based company said the platform spans model training, data infrastructure, production deployment, AI agents and other AI services.

Nebius has been expanding global data center and compute capacity to meet rising demand for GPU infrastructure. The company said the Citi facility adds financial flexibility for spending on hardware, capacity and supporting infrastructure.

Nebius said the financing reflects its goal of maintaining a disciplined balance sheet and matching different funding sources with specific stages of growth. For 2027 and beyond, the company plans to use asset-backed financing and other capital sources for later phases, while the Citi facility carries the near-term hardware and data-center buildout.