Josh Payne left high school in an industrial area of Australia and began his career in coal mines. He has no degree.
In 2020 he founded Arkon Energy, a renewable-powered bitcoin mining business. He also co-founded Battery Future Acquisition Corp. and was its COO.
Nscale launched in May 2024. Payne reused the power and sites Arkon had secured for mining and aimed them at GPU demand. Nscale raised a US$155 million Series A in December 2024 and a US$1.1 billion Series B in September 2025.
In 2025 Nscale signed a Microsoft contract covering more than 200,000 NVIDIA chips. In March 2026 it raised a US$2 billion Series C led by Aker and 8090 Industries at a US$14.6 billion valuation. Its S-1 showed revenue of US$140.6 million for the first half of 2026, up from US$33.0 million in all of 2025.