GPU cloud provider CoreWeave has filed for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) in the US, aiming to ride the AI wave and capitalize on the huge growth it has experienced recently.
The company, headquartered in Roseland, New Jersey, has filed a registration Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed IPO that would see shares of its Class A common stock traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “CRWV.”
The number of shares and the price range for the proposed offering have yet to be determined, the firm said. It is being underwritten primarily by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs.
In its Form S-1, CoreWeave states that it made $1.9 billion in revenue for 2024, a figure that it claims represents a remarkable 737 percent increase compared with the $229 million reported the previous year. The operator is said to be aiming for a valuation of $35 billion for the IPO, up from the $23 billion it was said to be worth just a few months ago.
However, the company also disclosed that 77 percent of its revenue came from just two customers during 2024, with Microsoft accounting for 62 percent, meaning it is heavily exposed to the Redmond giant.
CoreWeave’s growth is due to its cloud platform focused on GPU server infrastructure and services to support the development and training of AI models, which have been in high demand. It claims to have over 250,000 GPUs online, spread across 32 datacenters, mostly located in the US.
Last year, CoreWeave announced its intention to expand its datacenter footprint to sites located in Norway, Sweden, and Spain after setting up a new European headquarters in London and saying it would bring a pair of UK facilities online through colocation providers Digital Realty and Global Switch.
The rent-a-GPU operator has also seen investors queuing up to pump cash into its expansion over the past year or so, raising $7.5 billion from private equity companies last May following an earlier $1.1 billion round, with Cisco getting in on the act later in the year.
But the firm strikes a note of caution in its Form S-1, telling potential investors that revenue growth in any prior period cannot be taken as an indication of future performance.
“Even if our revenue continues to increase, our revenue growth rate is expected to decline in the future as a result of a variety of factors, including the maturation of our business,” it warns.
In addition to factors such as competition, CoreWeave notes that its revenue growth may also be affected by industry-specific factors, particularly the continued development of AI, and the effects of evolving regulations.
It also details worries over being able to access enough energy to drive its growing number of GPU farms, something that is becoming a global concern.
“Our inability to secure sufficient power or any power outages, shortages, supply chain issues, capacity constraints, or significant increases in the cost of securing power could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition, and future prospects,” it states.
Another risk factor identified is that CoreWeave has a limited number of suppliers that provide the technology infrastructure it depends on to offer a service, with Nvidia a key example. For the year ended December 31, 2024, just three suppliers accounted for 76 percent of all purchases made by the business.
“All of the GPUs used in our infrastructure today are Nvidia GPUs,” CoreWeave says, which could lead to inflated costs if the Trump administration carries out its threat to impose substantial tariffs on chips made abroad and imported. Alternatives such as AMD’s GPUs are also made overseas. ®
