Jamie Cox

Records of Companies House, the British company registry, show that James Edward Cox, a director of Fluidstack Ltd and of TreeCard Ltd, is a British national born in September 1996 whose country of residence is the United Kingdom; his appointments at both companies are listed under the same officer record.⁠[1]

Companies House records show James Edward Cox, under the same officer record, as a director of Musea Limited from August 3, 2015, the same day the company was incorporated. It is a private limited company registered in London whose stated line of business is the wholesale of clothing and footwear; the record gives no end date for this directorship.⁠[1][2]

He studied classics at the University of Oxford, where he met Gary Wu, who was studying economics.⁠[3]

Cashew was a peer-to-peer payments app founded in Oxford and launched in 2016; Oxford’s student newspaper Cherwell wrote in November 2017 that at one point more than 60% of Oxford students used it and that it later spread to several other UK universities. UKTN and EQTEQTEQT is a global private markets investment manager that originated in Sweden, with businesses spanning private capital, infrastructure, real estate, and secondaries. It was founded in 1994 by Conni Jonsson with the support of Investor AB, AEA Investors, and SEB, and listed in Stockholm in 2019; it has since expanded by integrating Exeter, LSP, Baring Private Equity Asia, and Coller Capital.Open the full entry Ventures both describe it as a Venmo for the UK, and UKTN writes that it reached 20% week-over-week growth. FinTech Futures calls Cashew a Y Combinator start-up from which he later exited.⁠[4][5][6][7]

Cherwell wrote in May 2017 that Cashew let users send money from a debit card to another user’s account and could be used to pay in some Oxford shops; after it expanded to other universities that Hilary term, payment-processing fees rose sharply, its “instant pay” feature did not bring in enough revenue, the company ran short of money and the app was briefly removed from the Apple App Store. Co-founder David Hsu denied at the time that the company had gone bankrupt, said the problems were short-term, and said it had switched banks, hired staff for withdrawals and support, and was in a “very strong position” after a funding trip to Silicon Valley.⁠[8]

Companies House records show that today’s Fluidstack Ltd (company number 10985545) was incorporated on September 28, 2017 under the name Flare Social Ltd, and that James Edward Cox was a director of the company from October 27, 2017.⁠[9][10]

ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry writes that he and Gary Wu started Fluidstack in 2017; the small British company began by helping gamers make some extra money renting their GPUs to AI researchers.⁠[3]

Cherwell wrote on November 5, 2017 that the ticketing platform FIXR would acquire Cashew’s app, its ball-ticketing business and the related technology and keep only the ticketing business; the peer-to-peer payment service would stop on November 6, users had six months to withdraw their balances, and the price was not disclosed. The article described him as a former co-founder of Cashew and a third-year student at St Hugh’s; he denied that the sale was linked to earlier rumours of financial trouble, saying that Cashew was already moving into the ticketing market, which he considered more sustainable, and that the team had decided to work alongside FIXR rather than compete with it head-on.⁠[4]

In the list of the 20 Thiel Fellows of the 2018 class that the Thiel Foundation announced on June 22, 2018, he is item 10, with Oxford, U.K. as his hometown and internet infrastructure as his field; the list describes him as a co-founder of Flare, a company building technology to turn any internet-connected device into a cloud server, with the longer-term goal of building infrastructure for a new decentralized internet. The announcement states that the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry encourages young people to pursue big ideas and start companies instead of attending college, and that each fellow receives $100,000 and mentorship from the Thiel Foundation’s network of technology founders, investors and scientists.⁠[11]

Forbes writes that he dropped out of Oxford and became a Thiel Fellow in the year after Fluidstack was started. TechCrunchTechCrunchTechCrunch is an American technology news outlet founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare and headquartered in San Francisco; it mainly covers technology companies, startups, and venture capital, and hosts events such as TechCrunch Disrupt. Its ownership passed successively through AOL, Verizon, and Yahoo, and in 2025 Regent announced its acquisition.Open the full entry also called him a Thiel fellow when it introduced TreeCard’s founders in 2021.⁠[3][12]

The previous-name record at Companies House shows that the company was called Flare Social Ltd from September 28, 2017 to December 21, 2018 and Fluidstack Ltd thereafter; its registered line of business is web portals.⁠[9]

TechCrunch writes that TreeCard was founded in August 2020 by him, Gary Wu and James Dugan; UKTN writes that he was 23 when the company was founded, and FinTech Futures and BusinessCloud also describe him as its 23-year-old chief executive. Forbes writes that he and Gary Wu started this cashback card for funding tree planting on the side in 2020. Companies House records show that TreeCard Ltd was incorporated on August 19, 2020 and that James Edward Cox became a director of it that day.⁠[12][5][13][7][3][14][1]

UKTN writes that the idea for TreeCard was first discussed at his mother’s kitchen table. EQT Ventures’ article writes that after Cashew he wanted another fintech opportunity, this time a product with a different purpose, one that let customers improve the impact of their spending without drastically changing their habits.⁠[5][6]

Before TreeCard launched, FinTech Futures wrote that the company had raised $1 million in seed funding from Ecosia, the tree-planting search engine; he said the team approached Ecosia in January and closed the round in the summer, and that he had used Ecosia a lot at university and thought of making a fintech version of it. The article also names Peter Francis and James Dugan as co-founders. It describes a free debit card made of sustainable cherry-tree wood and issued with MastercardMastercardMastercard Incorporated is a technology company in the global payments industry whose principal operating subsidiary was formed in November 1966. It is headquartered in Purchase, New York.Open the full entry, with Ecosia directing 80% of TreeCard’s profits to its reforestation projects and one tree planted and cared for over three years for every £45 or $60 spent; the company planned to launch in 2021, probably first in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry, where it would work with the banking back-end provider Synapse, while U.K. customers would be served through open banking, and those who registered before December 1 would receive a free wooden card at launch.⁠[7]

Tech.eu wrote in 2022 that Ecosia took a 20% stake in TreeCard in that $1 million round. Companies House records also show James Edward Cox as a director of Treepay Ltd from October 7, 2020, a company that has since been dissolved.⁠[15][1]

On February 25, 2021, TreeCard announced a $5.1 million (about £3.62 million) seed round led by EQT Ventures with participation from Seedcamp and Episode 1; its angel investors included GoCardless founder Matt Robinson, Indeed founder Paul Forster and ComplyAdvantage founder Charlie Delingpole, and the money was to go toward hiring, the U.K. product rollout and expansion into the United States and key European markets. The company had not yet launched and had a waitlist of more than 140,000 people.⁠[12][5][6]

At the time he was chief executive, James Dugan chief marketing officer and Gary Wu chief technology officer. In TechCrunch’s article he called the climate crisis “the biggest existential risk that humanity has faced in the last 200,000 years” and said that directing consumer spending was the most powerful lever for change, adding: “We are building a free spending card that allows consumers to spend more responsibly.” He called Ecosia TreeCard’s “mother” company, which would do all of the tree planting, and noted that “Interchange fees in the U.S. are significantly higher than in the EU.”⁠[5][13][12]

In the UKTN and BusinessCloud articles he said: “We wanted to create a financial product with a difference, one that was far removed from greenwashing,” and that EQT Ventures, as a multi-stage fund present in both Europe and the United States, provided “the perfect springboard.”⁠[5][13]

Companies House records show that James Edward Cox’s first term as a director of Fluidstack Ltd ran from October 27, 2017 to April 15, 2021.⁠[10][1]

Tech.eu wrote on November 30, 2022 that London’s TreeCard had raised a $23 million Series A led by Valar Ventures, World Fund and EQT Ventures, with participation from Seedcamp and Episode 1 and angel investors including Figma founder Dylan FieldDylan FieldDylan Field is the co-founder and CEO of Figma and an angel investor. He studied computer science and mathematics at Brown University, explored browser-based design tools with Evan Wallace, and founded Figma in 2012 with support from the Thiel Fellowship. His personal history also includes collecting digital art and investing in companies such as Mercury and Socket.Open the full entry and DoNotPay chief executive Joshua BrowderJoshua BrowderJoshua Browder is an entrepreneur and venture investor who founded the consumer-rights service DoNotPay in 2015 and leads it as chief executive; the service was once promoted as “the world’s first robot lawyer.” He was selected as a Thiel Fellow in 2018 and launched the venture fund Browder Capital. In September 2024 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought an administrative complaint over DoNotPay’s “AI lawyer” claims; DoNotPay agreed to settle, and the final order was issued in January 2025.Open the full entry; at that point the product was available only to U.S. customers in a beta programme, the waitlist stood at 250,000, 200,000 trees had been planted, and the company planned an official launch for European customers the following year and to double its team with the funding.⁠[15]

Speaking as co-founder and chief executive, he said in the article: “We've always believed that if there was a button that could make your life more sustainable, then people would press it,” adding that there was a desire and an urgent need to be more sustainable but that people often did not know where to start. Forbes writes that TreeCard had raised more than $30 million by 2022 and was at first a much bigger hit with investors than Fluidstack.⁠[15][3]

Companies House records show that James Edward Cox served as a director of TreeCard Ltd until October 7, 2025.⁠[1]

Companies House records show that James Edward Cox was appointed a director of Fluidstack Ltd again on January 10, 2026, a term for which the record gives no end date.⁠[10][1]

Forbes writes that TreeCard was shut down in April 2026.⁠[3]

In an official post dated July 20, 2026, Fluidstack announced that it had closed an $830 million Series A in January at a $7.5 billion valuation, led by Situational Awareness, and said that it builds infrastructure for the leading AI labs and that its goal is to be the fastest on the planet at deploying hundreds of gigawatts of compute. Forbes, for its part, writes that what Fluidstack announced in July was a $750 million round at a $7.5 billion valuation, led by Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness.⁠[16][3]

Forbes wrote on September 3, 2026 that Fluidstack had closed a previously unreported $1.5 billion round led by Jane Street, which several sources close to the company say values it at more than $18 billion; BloombergBloomberg L.P.Bloomberg L.P. is a global financial technology, data and media company founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981. It began by providing terminal services that deliver data, analytics and news to financial professionals, and launched Bloomberg News in 1990. Michael Bloomberg has pledged the vast majority of the company’s profits to his philanthropic organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies.Open the full entry had earlier written that the company was in talks to raise a $1 billion round. The article’s subheadline says the valuation made Fluidstack’s founders billionaires, and the article writes that corporate filings detailing their shareholdings show that co-founders Gary Wu (31), Jamie Cox (29) and César Maklary (29) would have been among Europe’s youngest self-made billionaires had the company stayed in the U.K.⁠[3]

Forbes writes that Fluidstack was based in London until December 2025 and is now headquartered in New York. Shareholders named in corporate filings include BlackRockBlackRockBlackRock is a publicly traded investment management company headquartered in New York, founded in 1988 by Larry Fink and seven others and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker BLK); its businesses include the iShares family of exchange-traded funds and the Aladdin investment and risk management platform. As of June 30, 2026, its assets under management totaled $15.3 trillion.Open the full entry, Gavin BakerGavin BakerGavin Baker is an American investor who founded the Boston investment manager Atreides Management in 2019 and serves as its managing partner and chief investment officer. He worked at Fidelity Investments from 1999 to 2017 and managed the Fidelity OTC Portfolio from 2009 to 2017.Open the full entry’s Atreides ManagementAtreides ManagementAtreides Management (Atreides Management, LP) is an investment management firm based in Boston, founded in 2019 by former Fidelity portfolio manager Gavin Baker. It follows a crossover strategy, investing in high-growth technology and consumer companies in both public and private markets.Open the full entry and Meta board member Charles SonghurstCharles SonghurstCharles Songhurst (commonly known as Charlie Songhurst) is a technology investor and former general manager of global corporate strategy at Microsoft who has invested in startups since 2013, backing more than 500 startups worldwide; he has been an independent director of Meta since December 2024.Open the full entry, and multiple sources also say that AlphabetAlphabetAlphabet is an American technology holding company formed in 2015 through a restructuring of Google, whose businesses include Google as well as companies in autonomous driving, life sciences, and early-stage technology investment. The group reports its businesses as Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets.Open the full entry and the early AnthropicAnthropicAnthropic is an artificial intelligence research and product company founded in 2021 that develops the Claude models, assistant, and tools such as Claude Code, and operates as a public benefit corporation. Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei are its co-founders, and its research covers model safety, interpretability, and steerability.Open the full entry backer Spark CapitalSpark CapitalSpark Capital is a U.S. venture capital firm founded in Boston in 2005, with offices in San Francisco, New York and Boston. Its early-stage and growth funds back technology businesses across fintech, enterprise software, AI and consumer products. Investments have included Twitter, Tumblr, Oculus, Plaid and Anthropic.Open the full entry are investors. Situational Awareness, which led the round at the $7.5 billion valuation, holds an estimated $2 billion stake. SECU.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is the federal securities regulator of the United States. Created during the Great Depression by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and led by five commissioners, it has a three-part mission of protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.Open the full entry filings show that Fluidstack and a string of new partners, including CoatueCoatueCoatue is a technology- and innovation-focused investment management firm founded by Philippe Laffont in 1999, operating in both public and private markets. Its current website lists Thomas Laffont as co-founder and chief investment officer of private investments; a Form ADV filed on July 29, 2026, disclosed regulatory assets under management of $92,705,722,582.Open the full entry’s data-center arm, have taken on more than $15 billion in debt.⁠[3]

Forbes writes that Fluidstack was slow going at first; during the pandemic it switched to renting entire blocks of GPUs from corporate and college labs, and its customers came to include start-ups such as Poolside, Mistral and Character.ai. After ChatGPTChatGPTChatGPT is a generative AI assistant launched by OpenAI on November 30, 2022. Through websites and applications, it provides conversation, writing, coding, search, file analysis, and image and voice interaction. It evolved from a free research preview into personal, enterprise and education plans, gradually adding deep research, Study mode and cross-application task execution. Its use has prompted continuing discussions about factual accuracy, personal privacy, copyright, education and teen safety.Open the full entry was launched, it grew to manage AI supercomputers with clusters of thousands of GPUs housed in other companies’ data centers; its revenue exceeded $66 million in 2024, the last year for which it disclosed its finances in U.K. corporate filings. Co-founder César Maklary, who had worked on aerodynamics for a Formula One team, joined in 2020; in a 2024 YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry presentation he said that they had PhD friends struggling to get compute from the hyperscalers on one side and gaming friends who used their powerful machines only two or three evenings a week on the other, which suggested a market.⁠[3]

In February 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the AI Action Summit that Fluidstack would help build an $11.5 billion data center in France; Forbes writes that just over a year later Fluidstack was said to have walked away from the project, which a source close to the company attributed to more power being available on a shorter timeline in the United States. Signs of the arrangement surfaced in bitcoin miners’ SEC filings from August 2025, and Fluidstack went on to sign decade-long power agreements with TeraWulf, Cipher Mining and Hut 8, together just under one gigawatt, with GoogleGoogleGoogle is an American technology company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin and incorporated in 1998. It became an Alphabet subsidiary in 2015. Its businesses include internet search, advertising, software platforms, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry providing billions of dollars as a backstop for the contracts; in November 2025 Anthropic announced that it would invest $50 billion in new data centers to be built by Fluidstack. Forbes judges that Fluidstack appears to be the first publicly known operator of TPU data centers outside of Google.⁠[3]

Forbes writes that Fluidstack’s other customers include MetaMetaMeta (Meta Platforms, Inc.) is a publicly listed American technology company, renamed from Facebook in 2021, that operates social communication, digital advertising, virtual reality, smart glasses and artificial intelligence businesses.Open the full entry, Jane Street and Black Forest Labs; an investment memo shared by one of its venture capital backers says the company is on track to manage up to 1.3 gigawatts across more than 10 sites in 2026, projects 2026 revenue of $660 million against $200 million in 2025, and aims for more than 17 gigawatts of sites by 2030, while the goal Fluidstack sets out to new hires is to secure 50 gigawatts of power by 2030. The company claims it can build a data center in just three months. In June 2026 it leased two buildings totalling more than 1 million square feet on the outskirts of Glendale, ArizonaArizonaArizona is a state in the southwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1912, as the 48th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 7,151,502.Open the full entry, and job postings indicate that it is building modular data-center units that can be shipped on trailers to remote locations, such as one of its new sites about 80 miles west of Abilene, TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry.⁠[3]

Fluidstack: Official website: https://fluidstack.io/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]