CoreWeave, the cloud computing services startup backed by Nvidia and private equity firms, could finally be the generative artificial intelligence startup that goes public with a bang. The company recently turned to top Wall Street bankers as it prepares for a 2025 initial public offering. Another big issue for investors is how much Nvidia stock has to gain from a wave of CoreWeave-like startups that also includes Lambda Labs, Crusoe and others.
New rivals to cloud giant Amazon.com, CoreWeave and the other cloud startups rent Nvidia-chip equipped computer servers to artificial intelligence app developers. When Nvidia invested $100 million in CoreWeave in early 2023, the fundraising round valued the startup at $2 billion. In CoreWeave's recent funding round, its valuation boomed to $23 billion.
CoreWeave just hired Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan for the expected IPO next year.
CoreWeave IPO Planned In 2025
"The potential IPO of CoreWeave stands out like a lake in a desert," said Deutsche Bank analyst David Folkerts-Landau in a report. "The (IPO) pipeline for U.S. share sales has largely dried up over the past two years, with technology deals few and far between. An IPO next year for the cloud-computing provider, whose recent fundraise reportedly valued it at $23 billion, could spell the end for the drought."
AI chipmaker Cerebras, an Nvidia rival, shelved its IPO in 2024, he noted.
Meanwhile, AI infrastructure provider Crusoe on Dec. 12 announced it has closed a $600 million funding round at a $2.8 billion valuation.
New Jersey-based CoreWeave's investors include hedge fund Magnetar Capital, Blackstone and Coatue. CoreWeave was founded as a cryptocurrency miner in 2017 before its move into cloud computing services.
Nvidia's biggest AI chip customers are cloud computing giants Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google-parent Alphabet. But Amazon and Google have built their own AI accelerator chips and aim to reduce their reliance on Nvidia, analysts say.
So Nvidia is hedging its bets by partnering with CoreWeave and others. They could emerge as significant customers in the long run, though not as big as Amazon or Microsoft Azure.
While there's always a tight supply of Nvidia AI chips, startups such as CoreWeave, Lambda and others stand out by their ability to buy Nvidia devices. They've bought tens of thousands of Nvidia chips.
Like other Nvidia customers, CoreWeave servers currently use H100 AI chips. Nvidia customers are just starting to get next-generation B200 "Blackwell" AI chips.
Nvidia Stock: Blackwell Chip Ramps
On Nvidia's third quarter earnings call with analysts, CEO Jensen Huang discussed the ramp-up of Blackwell AI chips. He gave CoreWeave a plug, while citing cloud giants in general.
"Blackwell production is in full steam," he said. "The supply chain team is doing an incredible job of working with our supply partners to increase Blackwell, and we're going to continue to work hard to increase Blackwell through next year. It is the case that demand exceeds our supply … And there's obviously a lot of engineering that we're doing across the world. You see now systems that are being stood up by Dell and CoreWeave. I think you saw systems from Oracle stood up. You have systems from Microsoft, and they're about to preview their Grace Blackwell systems. You have systems that are at Google. And so, all of these (cloud providers) are racing to be first."
On its website, CoreWeave claims to deliver AI computing services at a much lower cost than bigger cloud rivals.
"Our entire infrastructure is purpose-built for compute-intensive workloads, and everything from our servers to our storage and networking solutions are designed to deliver best-in-class performance that are up to 35 times faster and 80% less expensive than generalized public clouds," said CoreWeave.
Cloud Competition For Amazon?
"CoreWeave and the other GPU-as-a-service providers offer lower pricing but limited breadth," Dell'Oro analyst Baron Fung told IBD.
He noted that AWS, for example, offers cloud customers a menu of AI chips, depending on whether they're needed for training AI models or "inferencing" – running AI applications. Those include Amazon's "Trainium," AI chip, produced with Marvel Technologies.
AWS also offers software platforms for developing AI apps for specific industries.
"CoreWeave is purely renting the hardware and its top services are Nvidia-only," Fung said. "It's still a question of what role these smaller, tier 2 cloud GPU providers will play," he added. "It can give Nvidia more control over how its GPUs are deployed in the market."
Nvidia Stock Surges Again In 2024
For Nvidia stock, ramping up production of next-generation Blackwell AI chips in 2025 has been a key issue. Nvidia stock has jumped 180% in 2024 after surging 239% last year. Further, Nvidia stock remains on the IBD Leaderboard.
For tech companies generally, the rise of alternatives to AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud could be a positive development.
CoreWeave is a customer of computer server maker Dell and networking firm Nokia. Data storage systems maker Pure Storage and Cisco Systems invested in CoreWeave in its latest funding round.
CoreWeave's data centers currently use Nvidia networking chips. But Cisco aims to be a supplier of Ethernet networking devices, analysts say.
Further, CoreWeave is a customer of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike Holdings.
And, enterprise software maker ServiceNow is among investors in CoreWeave's data centers in the U.K.
Also, Bloom Energy will supply fuel cells to power compute infrastructure in CoreWeave data centers.
CoreWeave Revenue Growth
Meanwhile, Microsoft is the biggest investor in generative AI startup Open AI, which is the leader in building AI models and launched ChatGPT.
Capacity constraints in Microsoft's data centers are limiting its ability to meet OpenAI's demand for computing. So Microsoft has turned to CoreWeave as a provider of AI infrastructure.
According to The Information, Microsoft is CoreWeave's biggest customer. CoreWeave expects roughly $2 billion in revenue in 2024 and expects revenue to quadruple to $8 billion next year.
Also, CoreWeave expects to turn a profit on a net income basis before long. CoreWeave has borrowed heavily from its private equity partners, according to reports. The IPO will help raise capital amid its big expansion plans.
CoreWeave aims to have its AI infrastructure in 20 data centers by year end, including its own and those operated by companies such as Equinix and Digital Realty.
Follow Reinhardt Krause on Twitter @reinhardtk_tech for updates on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and cloud computing.
