CoreWeave is one of the tech companies that has capitalized on the AI boom by leveraging an early investment in Nvidia and shifting towards artificial intelligence rather than cryptocurrency mining.
All eyes are on the startup because sources who insist on being anonymous claim it has just signed a five-year cloud-computing contract worth $11.9 billion with OpenAI ahead of its anticipated stock market launch.
More details about CoreWeave and its upcoming IPO
CoreWeave was founded in 2017 and provides access to data centers and high-powered chips, majorly supplied by Nvidia, for AI workloads. Its competitors include cloud providers such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS.
The deal CoreWeave just signed with OpenAI will give the leading AI company a stake in CoreWeave. According to the people familiar with the matter, CoreWeave will issue shares worth $350 million to the ChatGPT maker via a private placement at the time of its initial public offering.
CoreWeave, which is regarded as one of the most sought-after AI startups in the U.S., will not get any of the proceeds as part of the share issue to OpenAI, the sources have said. They added that the details of the new contract and the placement are to be revealed in CoreWeave’s updated IPO filing.
The company is expected to list its shares in New York in the coming weeks, but the sources have cautioned that the timing and size of CoreWeave’s stock market launch can be affected by market conditions, and the terms of the deal with OpenAI is subject to change.
Talks are ongoing, but if successful, the deal would boost CoreWeave ahead of its blockbuster share sale, which is expected to headline the U.S. IPO lineup for 2025.
The discussions with OpenAI come at a time when investor interest in generative AI is skyrocketing. The AI boom, which has powered chipmakers such as Nvidia and other big tech firms, has driven a surge in global demand for infrastructure such as data centers and high-powered servers.
A successful IPO for CoreWeave could pave the way for other AI startups that have recently considered tapping public markets. Data center operator Switch has been weighing an IPO at a valuation of about $40 billion, including debt, Reuters reported last year.
CoreWeave’s IPO status
CoreWeave is an AI cloud infrastructure provider with a specialty in offering high-performance GPU computing power, especially for AI workloads like training large language models.
It is expected to target a valuation of more than $35 billion in its stock market listing, according to a Reuters report from November.
In its IPO filing which happened earlier this month, CoreWeave reported revenue of $1.92 billion in 2024, which shows a marked increase compared with the $228.9 million it recorded a year before. About two-thirds of this revenue came from Microsoft, the company’s biggest customer.
Meanwhile, its net loss increased to $863.4 million during that same period from $593.7 million in 2023. At this time, CoreWeave has raised more than $14.5 billion in debt and equity across 12 financing rounds, according to data compiled by Reuters.
Last year, the startup raised over $7 billion in one of the largest private debt financing rounds in history, led by asset managers Blackstone and Magnetar. The lead underwriters for CoreWeave’s upcoming stock market flotation are Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs and the shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol CRWV.
Other AI startups with upcoming IPOs
Getting listed on stock exchanges like the BSE and NASDAQ, is a signal that an AI startup is ready to expand internationally and attract larger pools of capital. The decision also boosts the startup’s credibility, and presents new opportunities for collaboration, and product development.
CoreWeave is one of the AI startups in the US to be getting ready for global expansion via an IPO but it is not the only one. Aside from CoreWeave, other AI startups with IPO potential include Fractal, IdeaForge, Cerebras System, SymphonyAI, Anthropic, Cohere, and Stripe.
IdeaForge is a key player in AI-powered drone technology and is popular among sectors like defense and industry. The company’s drones are famous for their capabilities and are used for tasks such as mapping, surveillance, and logistics in fields like mining, agriculture, and security. The company went public in July 2023, with shares debuting at a 94% premium over their issue price.
As for Cerebras Systems, which is widely renowned for its groundbreaking technology in the wafer-scale engine (WSE), there are no reports that suggest an upcoming IPO valuation, even though some reports claim significant funding has been raised.
The public debut of its IPO was expected to happen in early 2025 following a September 2024 filing.
SymphonyAI, which offers enterprise-grade AI solutions for industries like healthcare, retail, and manufacturing, aims to achieve a $500 million revenue run rate before listing. Its IPO is planned for the second half of 2025.
Anthropic’s current IPO valuation is undisclosed, but an IPO is expected within 2-3 years as the company continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The same goes for Cohere; a company that specializes in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and provides AI solutions for tasks such as chatbots, conversational AI, and language models.
Like Anthropic, Cohere has raised significant funding. However, its IPO valuation is yet to be revealed. Its IPO is not expected for another couple of years.
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