CoreWeave IPO: Is this Fast-Growing AI Stock a Buy Right Now?

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Jeremy Bowman, The Motley Fool

Wed, Apr 2, 2025, 8:48 AM 5 min read

Since artificial quality (AI) caught the attraction of the marketplace opening successful November 2022, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has acceptable the barroom for blockbuster maturation among AI-associated stocks. The GPU specializer posted 5 consecutive quarters of triple-digit gross maturation done fiscal 2024 and 2025, peaking astatine 265% successful the 3rd 4th of fiscal 2024.

The precocious IPO'd CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) offered the latest reminder of the explosive maturation successful AI, and its caller gross leap blew Nvidia's away. Admittedly, CoreWeave is overmuch smaller than Nvidia, but its gross soared 737% successful 2024 to scope $1.9 billion.

As a unreality infrastructure level purpose-built for AI, CoreWeave is the archetypal important initial nationalist offering successful this caller AI epoch (the banal went nationalist connected Friday, March 28). Let's instrumentality a look astatine what you should cognize astir CoreWeave earlier discussing whether it's a buy.

A chalk drafting of a rocket supra the letters IPO.

CoreWeave's way to becoming an AI unreality computing level isn't what you'd expect. The institution was primitively founded successful 2017 by 3 entrepreneurs with a past of trading c credits arsenic The Atlantic Crypto Corp., focused connected mining Ethereum during the crypto roar backmost then. By 2019, the institution had changed its sanction to CoreWeave arsenic it pivoted to go a information halfway business, leveraging the powerfulness of the GPUs it had initially purchased for Ethereum mining, and past done acquiring distressed hardware companies during the "crypto winter" of 2018 and 2019.

The institution began utilizing its computing infrastructure to render videos oregon grooming AI models for customers. In 2020, it started to germinate into the unreality level it is contiguous erstwhile it began renting Nvidia GPUs successful the unreality to its customers. From there, CoreWeave attracted customers, arsenic its work was faster than accepted platforms, making it perfect for AI applications. Its gross has jumped astir 119x successful the past 2 years, from $16 cardinal successful 2022 to $1.9 cardinal successful 2024. Along the way, Nvidia and OpenAI person go investors.

The institution sees its competitory vantage arsenic being purpose-built for AI, portion accepted unreality platforms are "built to big websites, databases, and SaaS apps, which person fundamentally antithetic needs than the high-performance requirements of AI," arsenic CoreWeave says successful its prospectus.

CoreWeave's soaring maturation is nary uncertainty impressive, but it's not arsenic harmless arsenic it mightiness seem. Customer attraction is simply a large hazard for the company. In 2024, 62% of its gross came from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and 15% came from its second-biggest customer.