With this latest move, CoreWeave has once again fired an aggressive shot across the bow of its competitor. It has set an IPO at $40 a share. That move, which was announced Thursday, will raise $1.5 billion and would be the largest U.S. tech initial public offering since 2021. The company supports an extremely capital-intensive model which requires large upfront equipment buys and real estate investments. Now, it’s really positioning itself to compete head-to-head with industry giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. CoreWeave’s shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol “CRWV” on Friday.
During its multi-year path toward the IPO, CoreWeave’s performance has attracted significant capital investments and interest. OpenAI committed to buy $350 million in CoreWeave equity as part of the transaction. Nvidia will be heavily involved in the offering, with an immediate lead order of $250 million at the $40 per share offer price. CoreWeave ended up scaling down its offering size from 49 million shares down to 37.5 million. At the top end of the range, the company’s valuation would have ballooned to nearly $26.5 billion, based on the currently outstanding Class A and Class B shares.
While CoreWeave’s hyper-competitive entrance to the market may seem surprising, it’s a small signal of the company’s rapid growth with a net loss of $863 million. Revenue for the company last year soared more than 700%, almost reaching $2 billion. This amazing increase was spurred by the meteoric growth of its operations and customer base. After all, Microsoft is CoreWeave’s biggest customer, with other high-profile clients like Meta, IBM, and Cohere.
The IPO represents an important step in CoreWeave’s quest to strengthen its place at the heart of the technology sector. The company’s fierce intent to challenge the tech giants speaks volumes to the company’s strategic intent and long-term potential to capture market share. As its shares prepare to start trading, everyone is looking at CoreWeave as it starts this exciting new chapter.