Firmus co-founder Oliver Curtis has described the AI infrastructure company’s failure to win investor support for its proposed $44 billion mega-float last week as a “great loss for Australia”.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Firmus’s planned ASX debut dramatically collapsed, Curtis said Australians’ “dim views” of people willing to take risks were driving start-ups to seek opportunities overseas.
“I think it’s a missed opportunity for Australia, to be brutally honest,” Curtis, who is married to PR entrepreneur Roxy Jacenko, told The Australian in Singapore.
He said Firmus should have become “a home-grown hero”, producing advanced technology and pursuing a strong pipeline of opportunities, but claimed the company had instead encountered widespread disbelief in Australia.
“It’s another chapter, and we will ensure that we live on as a business. Nothing changes. Watch this space,” Curtis said.
Curtis, who served a year in prison for insider trading a decade ago, said he hoped Firmus would eventually be remembered as a “global Australian tech success story”.
He warned, however, that Australia risked losing entrepreneurs and companies to an overseas brain drain as they searched for funding and established headquarters abroad.
“I think there is an opportunity that Australia can capture,” he said. “We’ll continue to support what is a great ecosystem and industry for Australia.”
Firmus Technologies founder Oliver Curtis has travelled to Asia seeking new backers after the company spectacularly failed to attract investors for its IPO last week
Firmus co-founders Oliver Curtis and Tim Rosenfield
Curtis was released from Cooma prison in 2017. The idea for Firmus Technologies reportedly began taking shape while he was behind bars
“What has happened over the last 48 hours makes no difference to my company. Time will tell,” Curtis said.
Only last week, Firmus appeared set to deliver a major Australian success story. The company was on course for the country’s second-largest stock market debut behind Telstra, with shares priced at $11 and a total valuation of $44 billion.
Backed by billions of dollars from major US investors, including chipmaker Nvidia and investment firm Blackstone, Firmus had hoped to raise a further $7.9 billion by last Thursday ahead of its planned October 23 listing.
Curtis had even told brokers that investor “indications [were] well in excess of the offer price”.
The proposed debut was abruptly abandoned on Friday, amid concerns that Firmus was failing to deliver on its promises and that Curtis was being overly “greedy”.
The company’s ambitious plan to build data centres equipped with powerful computer chips has so far resulted only in the development of smaller AI computing facilities.
Investors were concerned that Firmus had not yet demonstrated it could construct and operate the large-scale data centres it intends to develop across Australia and Asia.
A New York hedge fund also raised questions about Curtis’s 2016 insider trading conviction, for which he served 12 months of a two-year prison sentence.
Curtis with his socialite wife and publicist, Roxy Jacenko
The couple live a jet-set lifestyle, regularly travelling to Europe on a private jet. Their children board in Switzerland
Investment fund manager Michael Farzis, a prospective investor who declined the Initial Public Offering (IPO) – told Our News Outlet the initial pricing was ‘very aggressive’.
‘It’s a surprise given what we were told earlier in the week because investors were largely told that it was oversubscribed, and there were indications well in excess of demand’ he said.
‘It looks like that wasn’t true, and that’s probably hurt the IPO.
‘I think the other interesting thing is what this does globally… this was a huge IPO (so) the question is whether this puts a chill around the whole global AI trade, because lots of people were watching this IPO.
‘I think they reached too high and I think they were way too aggressive in their valuation expectations, which ran way ahead of what they’d been able to execute.
‘Had they had more modest expectations, I think they’d had a better chance of succeeding in listing.’
When asked whether he had misled investors with his messaging around the sale, Curtis rejected the suggestion and labelled the remark ‘disgraceful’.
‘If you want to stoke a reaction … just be careful what you say,’ he said.
‘We’re in a perfectly good position. There’s no fire sale; people can dance on my grave.
‘Hopefully we can be looked at in 12 months’ time (or even) six or three months’ time (and be) delivering exactly what we said we would be delivering.’
Firmus is now reportedly seeking an additional US$3billion in additional funding and is targeting wealthy private investors across Australia and Asia.
READ MORE: Inside the incredible comeback of Roxy Jacenko’s husband: From jailhouse to billionaire after massive ChatGPT deal
