Lancium Raises $150M to Run Bitcoin Mining on Clean Energy

Lancium Technologies, a Houston-based tech company, said it had raised $150 million to build a series of bitcoin mines across the Lone Star State that will run on green energy.

The company said Tuesday that its so-called clean campuses will host bitcoin mining, high-throughput computing and other energy intensive applications.

“This financing allows us to embark on the next high-growth phase of our business, and we are encouraged by the support of a broad range of investors from the energy and cryptocurrency sectors,” Michael McNamara, co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.

McNamara added that the company has “an ambitious growth strategy with over 2,000 megawatts of capacity in development across our Clean Campuses, and significant capacity expected to come online in the year ahead.”

Lancium said in September that it had broken ground on its first clean campus, in Fort Stockton, Texas.

The initial application at the Fort Stockton site will be a 100,000+ square-foot facility for bitcoin mining and other high-throughput computing workloads, the company said.

The campuses are built at critical points on the transmission system that are often overwhelmed with renewable energy, the company said.

Hanwha Solutions, an energy services company based in Seoul, South Korea, led the financing round.

Bitcoin mining has sparked controversy as it requires a great deal of energy.

A recent report by the New York Times found that bitcoin mining consumes about 0.5% of all energy consumption worldwide, or roughly seven times more than Google’s total energy consumption per year.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said on Saturday that the country will build an oceanside “Bitcoin City” at the base of a volcano.

The location will take advantage of the Conchagua volcano’s geothermal energy to power bitcoin mining.

In September, El Salvador became the first country to make bitcoin legal tender.