Nvidia-backed CoreWeave poised to debut after IPO slashed

Shares of CoreWeave CRWV.O, artificial intelligence startup backed by Nvidia NVDA.O, set to debut on the Nasdaq with ticker "CRWV" on Fri after hotly-anticipated IPO prices well below expectations

Livingston, New Jersey-based co late Thurs announced 37.5 mln shares at $40 for total raise of $1.5 bln, and valuing co at roughly $23 bln

Co and some of its existing shareholders had planned to sell 49 mln shares at $47-$55, or up to $2.7 bln

Nvidia, which has ~6% stake, reportedly buying $250 mln worth of IPO shares

Founded in 2017 as a crypto mining firm, CoreWeave provides access to data centers and high-powered chips for AI workloads, mainly supplied by Nvidia, and competes against cloud providers like Microsoft's Azure and Amazon's AWSIn 2024, CoreWeave's rev surged more than eightfold to $1.9 bln, though has been unprofitable. Microsoft MSFT.O, which is also a customer, accounted for nearly two-thirds of CoreWeave's rev last year

Earlier this week, D.A. Davidson initiated coverage of CoreWeave at 'neutral', saying co is "the largest in the new neocloud category, but we see it mostly as a highly levered way for Microsoft to offload less desirable workloads and Nvidia to leverage a small investment into a very large customer”

“This structure may continue to work as long as demand for AI continues to grow exponentially,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria wrote in note

CoreWeave's IPO is seen as a critical barometer of investor appetite for new listings, and whether enthusiasm for AI-related names remains buoyant or has waned, especially since the launch of China's DeepSeek

** Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs leading an 18-firm underwriting group for the IPO

** The offering comes as markets have been roiled by President Donald Trump's tariff salvos and concerns of a slowing U.S. economy

** Through Thurs, the S&P 500 .SPX and Nasdaq .IXIC have lost 3% and ~8%, respectively, YTD. And chipmakers have been thumped, evidenced by ~11% drop in the Philadelphia semiconductor index .SOX this year, while Nvidia's stock has shed 17%