Analyst(s): Nick Patience
Publication Date: March 5, 2025
CoreWeave filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC on March 3, 2025, kicking off its path to its initial public offering (IPO). As one of the first specialized AI infrastructure providers to pursue public funding, CoreWeave’s IPO will provide insights into investor appetite for pure-play AI infrastructure companies in the current market environment. Right after it had filed, it announced the acquisition of MLOps software firm Weights & Biases for a reported $1.7 billion.
What is Covered in this Article:
- CoreWeave has filed its S-1 with the SEC to become a publicly traded company under the ticker “CRWV,” positioning itself as a specialized cloud infrastructure provider focused on AI computing workloads.
- The company targets two primary customer segments: “AI Enterprises” (traditional companies incorporating AI) and “AI Natives” (organizations whose primary focus is AI technology).
- The filing reveals a large dependency on Microsoft as a customer, accounting for 62% of 2024 revenues.
- CoreWeave’s dual-class stock structure will maintain concentrated control in the hands of the company’s founders even after the IPO, ensuring stability but potentially raising governance concerns.
- The acquisition of Weights & Biases
- The preliminary prospectus outlines an offering with both primary and secondary shares, with Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs leading the underwriting consortium.
The News: Cloud infrastructure company CoreWeave, specializing in AI computing workloads, has taken the first step towards going public by submitting its S-1 registration statement to the SEC. The company intends to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “CRWV.” CoreWeave’s specialization in AI infrastructure sets it apart in a market dominated by general-purpose cloud providers, especially during this period of unprecedented demand for AI computing resources. The company announced the acquisition of MLOps software firm Weights & Biases for a reported $1.7 billion, adding a software layer that should help differentiate it from its competition.
CoreWeave files for IPO: Specialized AI Cloud Provider Eyes Next Phase of Growth
Analyst Take: CoreWeave’s IPO filing represents a significant milestone in the AI infrastructure market. As one of the first specialized AI cloud providers to pursue public market funding, CoreWeave’s approach differs markedly from the hyperscale cloud providers currently dominating the cloud computing landscape. The company has established itself as a provider of infrastructure optimized specifically for AI computing requirements, offering bare metal computing resources that remove virtualization layers to maximize performance, a managed Kubernetes service, and various abstraction layers designed for AI workloads.
From Crypto to IPO
Founded in 2017 by Michael Intrator (current CEO, President and Chairman), Brian Venturo (Chief Strategy Officer), and Brannin McBee (Chief Development Officer), CoreWeave began life focused on cryptocurrency mining operations, leveraging GPU hardware to mine Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. However, as the crypto market faced volatility, CoreWeave’s leadership pivoted the business toward high-performance cloud computing services for AI workloads around 2019-2020.
This transition proved prescient as demand for specialized AI computing resources exploded following the emergence of foundation models and the subsequent Gen AI Cambrian explosion when ChatGPT launched in November 2022. The company rapidly expanded its data center footprint and secured critical GPU resources during industry-wide shortages. By 2023, CoreWeave had raised approximately $2.3 billion in debt and equity financing, including a reported $400 million investment from Nvidia (also its principal GPU supplier) and significant funding from Magnetar Capital. This financing fueled aggressive expansion as the company scaled to meet surging demand from AI-focused customers.
The company has 32 data centers, more than 250,000 GPUs, and 1.3 gigawatts of contracted power capacity.
Customers
CoreWeave targets two key customer segments: AI Enterprises – traditional companies incorporating AI capabilities, including Fortune 500 companies – and AI Natives – organizations primarily focused on AI technology. This bifurcated approach demonstrates CoreWeave’s recognition of the diverse adoption patterns emerging in the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem.
But in terms of customers overall, Microsoft dominates. The filing notes that 77% of revenues in the calendar year 2024 came from two customers, and 62% of the total was from Microsoft (the other prominent customer wasn’t named, but others named in the filing are Cohere, IBM, Meta, Mistral, and NVIDIA). The filing notes somewhat coyly that “customers may develop their own infrastructure that may compete with our services,” which is already the case for Microsoft.
The timing of CoreWeave’s public offering is particularly noteworthy. Since late 2022, we’ve seen unprecedented demand for specialized AI computing resources driven by the emergence of large language models and Gen AI applications. Organizations developing and deploying these increasingly sophisticated AI models require purpose-built computing environments prioritizing performance, scalability, and cost efficiency—precisely the market segment CoreWeave is targeting.
Financial Structure and Investor Interest
The filing has some financial details but the amount CoreWeave is targeting to raise from the IPO will come in later amendments. But revenues and losses are included. The company’s revenue showed significant year-over-year growth, increasing from $16 million in 2022 to $229 million in 2023 and to $1.9 billion in 2024. During this period, the company continued to invest in business growth to leverage market opportunities. As a result, the company incurred net losses of $31 million, $594 million, and $863 million for the same years, respectively. CoreWeave had cash and cash equivalents of $1.36 billion at the end of 2024 and a total debt of $7.92 billion.
The S-1 filing reveals an underwriting team led by Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, joined by a broader group that includes Barclays, Citigroup, MUFG, Deutsche Bank Securities, Jefferies, Mizuho, Wells Fargo Securities, BofA Securities, Guggenheim Securities, Needham & Company, and Galaxy Digital.
A particularly notable aspect of CoreWeave’s S-1 filing is its dual-class stock structure, which will maintain concentrated control in the hands of the company’s founders after the IPO. The company has established Class A shares (carrying one vote each) to be offered to the public and Class B shares (carrying ten votes each) primarily held by founders and early investors. After the IPO, CEO Michael Intrator, CSO Brian Venturo, and CDO Brannin McBee will collectively retain majority voting control of CoreWeave’s outstanding capital stock.
This governance structure represents a deliberate choice that may protect CoreWeave from short-term market pressures as it executes its long-term strategy. However, such arrangements have faced increasing scrutiny from institutional investors and governance advocates who prefer equal voting rights for all shareholders—a factor potential investors will need to evaluate carefully.
Weights & Biases acquisition
The pickup of Weights & Biases, an MLOps platform, came soon after CoreWeave had filed its S-1. Weights & Biases had raised more than $250m, with its last round being a $50 million series C round in August 2023, which valued the company at $1.25 billion. Weights & Biases software is used by companies including OpenAI, Meta, NVIDIA, Snowflake, AstraZeneca, Toyota, Canva, Square, and Wayve and more than 1 million AI engineers. CoreWeave has committed to continuing to develop its software and also enabling the deployment of AI models built using W&B’s tools to be deployed anywhere, including on-premises and hyperscale cloud providers.
Competition
CoreWeave operates in an increasingly competitive market for AI infrastructure, facing competition from several directions. The hyperscale cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure) continue expanding their AI-specific offerings while leveraging their extensive global infrastructure and integrated services. Meanwhile, other specialized AI infrastructure startups and traditional hardware vendors offering high-performance computing configurations optimized for AI workloads are also vying for market share. These include Lambda Labs, Crusoe, RunPod, Together AI, and Vultr, all of which are still privately held but will be watching CoreWeave’s IPO closely.
CoreWeave’s competitive advantage centers on purpose-built infrastructure specifically optimized for AI applications, potentially offering performance, cost, or flexibility advantages compared to general-purpose cloud infrastructure. The constrained supply of advanced GPUs and other specialized AI accelerators creates both challenges and opportunities in this market. Companies with established supply chains and purchasing relationships may possess significant advantages in accessing critical hardware components during periods of supply limitation.
What to Watch:
- CoreWeave’s ability to demonstrate sustainable competitive advantages against both hyperscale cloud providers and other specialized AI infrastructure companies will be critical to its long-term success.
- The capital-intensive nature of infrastructure deployment will require careful financial management. Once this information becomes available, investors should scrutinize CoreWeave’s capital expenditure requirements, investment cycles, and cash flow characteristics.
- Strategic partnerships with hardware providers (notably NVIDIA, its supplier of GPU and a significant investor), AI model developers, and enterprise technology integrators could significantly influence CoreWeave’s growth trajectory.
- It will probably want to reduce its reliance on Microsoft as a customer over time.
- As the AI technology landscape continues to evolve rapidly, CoreWeave’s adaptability to changing infrastructure requirements and potential commoditization of services will be essential to maintain growth and profitability.
- A continued focus on both the “AI Enterprises” and “AI Natives” segments will require carefully balanced product development and go-to-market strategies to address their different needs and buying patterns.
See the complete S-1 filing from CoreWeave on the SEC website and the press release here.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
CoreWeave Stakes Claim in UK AI Market with Advanced GPU Infrastructure Build-Out
CoreWeave Secures $2.3 Billion in Debt Financing, Challenges for AI Compute
Beyond Experimentation: AI Becoming Enterprise Cornerstone
Author Information
Nick is VP and Practice Lead for AI at The Futurum Group. Nick is a thought leader on the development, deployment and adoption of AI - an area he has been researching for 25 years. Prior to Futurum, Nick was a Managing Analyst with S&P Global Market Intelligence, with responsibility for 451 Research’s coverage of Data, AI, Analytics, Information Security and Risk. Nick became part of S&P Global through its 2019 acquisition of 451 Research, a pioneering analyst firm Nick co-founded in 1999. He is a sought-after speaker and advisor, known for his expertise in the drivers of AI adoption, industry use cases, and the infrastructure behind its development and deployment. Nick also spent three years as a product marketing lead at Recommind (now part of OpenText), a machine learning-driven eDiscovery software company. Nick is based in London.
