CoreWeave rises after sales smash expectations

CoreWeave only had one chance to make a first impression. And with how hot the stock has been lately, it was always going to be tough to impress investors.

But shares of the AI cloud computing company are nonetheless moving higher in after-hours trading after the firm booked revenues of nearly $982 million in the first quarter, smashing estimates for $862 million. There’s more coming, too. A LOT more. The company’s revenue backlog totaled a whopping $25.9 billion at the end of Q1.

Those sales figures and robust pipeline “suggest a sizable uptick in demand for AI infrastructure, likely indicating that the company isn’t capacity-constrained,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Anurag Rana and Andrew Girard wrote.

Adjusted EBITDA of $606 million also exceeded the $570 million estimate, though margins of 62% were well below the anticipated 65.9%.

“Demand for our platform is robust and accelerating as AI leaders seek the highly performant AI cloud infrastructure required for the most advanced applications,” said Michael Intrator, CoreWeave’s cofounder and CEO. “We are scaling as fast as possible to capture that demand. The future runs on CoreWeave.”

Shares had hit a record high ahead of this report, though that’s not a long record to speak of for the recently IPO’d firm.

The earnings release said the company would provide guidance on the quarterly conference call.

The stock has become something of an options market darling, with activity tilting decidedly bullish since its April 21 low.

It’s been a tough time for those shorting the shares lately, as not only are borrow costs high, but the stock has ripped up 90% since the trough.