The initial public offering (IPO) of CoreWeave (CRWV.O), an artificial intelligence start-up supported by Nvidia (NVDA), has unfortunately fallen flat. The highly-anticipated launch was marked by a downsized IPO that failed to meet expected pricing.
According to early indications, CRWV shares were set to open at $40, equivalent to the IPO price. The company, based out of Livingston, New Jersey, confirmed late Thursday the sale of 37.5 million shares, raising a total of $1.5 billion. This resulted in a fully diluted valuation of around $23 billion at the IPO price.
Despite its rapid growth, CoreWeave has yet to achieve profitability. The company had originally planned with some existing shareholders to sell 49 million shares at a price range of $47-$55. Nvidia, a minor stakeholder with about 6%, reportedly planned to purchase $250 million worth of IPO shares.
Established in 2017 as a cryptocurrency mining entity, CoreWeave now provides access to data centers and high-powered chips for AI workloads. The company competes with major cloud providers such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS. In 2024, CoreWeave’s revenue increased eightfold to $1.9 billion, with Microsoft accounting for nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenue.
Earlier this week, D.A. Davidson began coverage of CoreWeave with a ‘neutral’ rating, describing the company as “a highly leveraged avenue for Microsoft to offload less desirable workloads and for Nvidia to turn a small investment into a significant customer.”
The performance of CoreWeave’s IPO is viewed as a crucial indicator of investor interest in new listings and sentiment towards AI-related stocks, particularly following the introduction of China’s DeepSeek.
The IPO was led by an 18-firm underwriting group including Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs. Market volatility this year, exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements and fears of a U.S. economic slowdown, has added to the uncertainty. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices are down 5% and approximately 10% year-to-date, respectively, while the Philadelphia semiconductor index has fallen 3% in this session alone, marking a 14% loss since 2025.
