CoreWeave — Startup Profile

The Essential Cloud for AI™

HQ: Roseland, NJ, United States | Founded: 2017 | Employees: 2,500-3,000 | Stage: Public (NASDAQ: CRWV) | Website: https://www.coreweave.com

About

CoreWeave was founded in 2017 in Roseland, New Jersey as Atlantic Crypto by commodity traders Michael Intrator, Brian Venturo, and Brannin McBee, initially mining Ethereum in a New Jersey closet. As crypto winter hit, the founders repurposed their GPU fleet for cloud rendering and then AI training, securing early access to NVIDIA H100s via close ties to NVIDIA. By 2022-2023 the company branded as CoreWeave — The Essential Cloud for AI™ — offering bare-metal GPU access with InfiniBand networking, Kubernetes-native orchestration, and Mission Control observability at 30-40% better price-performance than general-purpose hyperscalers for AI workloads.

CoreWeave operates a vertically integrated AI cloud: it owns the data center design, procures GPUs using infrastructure-backed debt where the GPUs themselves are collateral, and delivers Kubernetes (CKS) and Slurm-on-Kubernetes (SUNK) with <2s cold starts and bare-metal latency. Customers include Microsoft (62% of 2024 revenue), Meta, OpenAI ($11.9B 5-year deal), IBM, Mistral AI, Cohere, Perplexity and NVIDIA. After raising $642M in Dec 2023 (Fidelity/Magnetar), $1.1B Series C in May 2024 at $19B valuation led by Coatue/Altimeter/Fidelity plus $7.5B Blackstone debt, CoreWeave IPO'd March 28, 2025 on Nasdaq under CRWV at $40/share, raising $1.5B. The company reported $5.13B revenue in FY2025 (+168% YoY) but remains unprofitable with $1.17B net loss as it scales to 1 GW+ capacity and 5 GW AI factories with NVIDIA by 2030.

The Take

CoreWeave is the breakout AI neocloud — turning a closet of crypto-mining GPUs into the $23B IPO that defined AI infrastructure in 2025. As hyperscalers race to secure NVIDIA Blackwell capacity, CoreWeave's purpose-built, GPU-collateralized model has scaled from $229M in 2023 to $5.1B in 2025 at 170% YoY with a $66.8B revenue backlog and over 850MW active power (3.1GW contracted). Concentration risk (Microsoft 62-67% of revenue) and $7.5B+ in GPU-backed debt are real, but $11.9B OpenAI, $35B Meta, and dedicated NVIDIA backing make CoreWeave the essential third cloud for AI labs that can't wait for AWS or Azure.

Key Metrics

Market Cap at IPO: $23B (Mar 28, 2025, $40/share)
Current Valuation: ~$27B (2025)
Total Funding (Equity+Debt): $12.1B+ ($14.2B w/ IPO)
Revenue: $1.9B (2024) → $5.13B (2025)
Revenue Backlog: $66.8B (Dec 31, 2025)
GPUs Under Management: 250,000+ across 32 data centers
Active Power: 850 MW (3.1 GW contracted)
Founded: 2017 (as Atlantic Crypto)

Funding Rounds

Round: $3M (2018-07-30) — Undisclosed
Round: $50M (2021-11-10) — Magnetar Capital
Round: $221M (2023-04-20) — Magnetar Capital
Round: $2.3B (2023-08-03) — Magnetar Capital, Blackstone
Round: $642M (2023-12-04) — Fidelity Management, Magnetar Capital
Round: $1.1B (2024-05-01) — Coatue, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity
Round: $7.5B (2024-05-17) — Blackstone, Magnetar Capital, Coatue
Round: $1.5B (2025-03-28) — Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan (bookrunners); NVIDIA $250M anchor

Key People

Michael Intrator
Brian Venturo
Brannin McBee
Nitin Agrawal
Peter Salanki
Chen Goldberg

Key Competitors

Lambda Labs —
Nebius (ex-Yandex N.V.) —
Amazon Web Services (AWS) —
Microsoft Azure —
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) —

Timeline Highlights

2025-03-28: IPO on Nasdaq (CRWV) raises $1.5B at $23B
2025-03-04: S-1 filed: $1.9B 2024 revenue, Microsoft 62%
2024-05-01: $1.1B Series C at $19B + $7.5B Blackstone debt
2023-08-03: $2.3B debt + $221M Series B at $2B valuation
2022-01-01: Pivot to AI cloud as CoreWeave
2017-06-01: Founded as Atlantic Crypto in Roseland, NJ

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