Kevin O’Leary-Backed Bitcoin Miner to Locate HQ in North Dakota

Bitcoin mining startup Bitzero, whose backers include entrepreneur and "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary, has chosen North Dakota as the headquarters and hub for its North American operations.

• CEO Akbar Shamji said Bitzero plans to build 200 megawatts of data centers in the state over the next two to three years at a cost of $400 million to $500 million. The company is also part of a joint venture focused on graphene battery technology that plans to invest $200 million to $500 million to bring an assembly and distribution hub to North Dakota over the same time frame.
• “North Dakota emerged as the logical choice for Bitzero due to alignment on the state’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, its robust energy industry, favorable tax and regulatory environment, and access to top-tier engineering and software talent for the commercialization of new intellectual property in the data center space,” said the company in a statement.
• Bitzero describes itself as a miner that “harnesses renewable energy within an ESG-driven Zero Carbon Displacement ecosystem to harmonize relationships between data processing, crypto-mining, commerce, communities, and the environment.”
• Television personality and green mining advocate O’Leary is a strategic investor in Bitzero, along with Dubai-based Phoenix Group, a bitcoin mining rig supplier and venture capital firm. In the statement, O’Leary teased another announcement regarding a project in Montana that’s due to be announced this week.
• To date, Bitzero has raised about $100 million in investment capital and plans to go public on the Canadian stock exchange within the next 60 days, and then subsequently aim for listing on the Nasdaq.
• At its most recent funding, the miner raised about $45.9 million in a private placement at a price of $0.40 per share.