Mirror Review
May 15th, 2025
Summary:
- Nvidia-backed CoreWeave, a prominent AI Hyperscaler™ for GPU Cloud Computing, has released its much-anticipated CoreWeave Q1 2025 results.
- Their Q1 report showcases a period of significant growth, strategic advancements, and substantial demand for its specialized cloud infrastructure.
- The company reported remarkable revenue growth driven by the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence across various sectors.
- This report marked CoreWeave’s first earnings announcement since its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in March 2025.
The first quarter of 2025 has been a landmark period for CoreWeave. “We’ve delivered an outstanding start to 2025 on multiple fronts. Our strong first quarter financial performance caps a string of milestones including our IPO, our major strategic deal with OpenAI as well as other customer wins, our acquisition of Weights & Biases and many technical achievements,” said Michael Intrator, CoreWeave’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Michael further emphasized the burgeoning demand, stating, “Demand for our platform is robust and accelerating as AI leaders seek the highly performant AI cloud infrastructure required for the most advanced applications. We are scaling as fast as possible to capture that demand. The future runs on CoreWeave.”
Here are 8 key insights from the Coreweave first quarter results:
1. Explosive Revenue Growth
CoreWeave reported a staggering 420% year-over-year increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2025, reaching $981.6 million, up from $188.7 million in Q1 2024.
This significantly surpassed analyst expectations, which was around $853 million to $859.8 million.
2. Substantial Revenue Backlog
A strong indicator of future revenue, the company’s revenue backlog stood at an impressive $25.9 billion as of March 31, 2025.
This includes $14.7 billion in Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO) and $11.2 billion from other committed customer contracts, notably boosted by a major deal with OpenAI.
3. Strategic Alliances Powering Growth
Key customer wins and partnerships were central to the quarter’s success.
- A strategic deal with OpenAI added $11.2 billion to the revenue backlog. CEO Mike Intrator also revealed a subsequent $4 billion contract with OpenAI signed after the quarter ended.
- A partnership was announced with IBM to provide compute capacity for IBM’s Granite models.
- The company also hinted at a new $4 billion deal with an unnamed “large AI enterprise,” identified by CEO Michael Intrator as a Big Tech “hyperscaler”.
4. Expanding Infrastructure Footprint
CoreWeave continued the rapid scaling of its purpose-built AI infrastructure. By the end of Q1 2025, it had approximately 420 MW of active power and roughly 1.6 GW of contracted power.
This is a significant step up, with CFO Nitin Agrawal stating, “We’re expecting to have deployed power by the end of the year more than double of what our life-to-date deployed power is on our platform.”
5. Navigating Profitability and High Expenditures
Despite the strong revenue, CoreWeave reported a net loss of $314.6 million for Q1 2025, wider than the $129.2 million loss in Q1 2024. The diluted net loss per share was $1.49. The company’s adjusted net loss was $149.6 million.
Executives also guided for significant capital expenditures, expecting to spend $20 billion to $23 billion in 2025, driven by increased customer demand.
CFO Nitin Agrawal explained that the higher spending is “fundamentally driven by increased customer demand.”
6. Strong Adjusted EBITDA and Outlook
On an adjusted basis, CoreWeave showed robust financial health. Adjusted EBITDA soared by 480% to $606.1 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 62%.
The company projected strong future performance with Q2 2025 revenue expected between $1.06 billion and $1.1 billion, and full-year 2025 revenue forecasted at $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion.
7. Successful IPO and Capital Raise
CoreWeave successfully completed its IPO in March, raising $1.4 billion in net proceeds. This brought the total debt and equity raised to $17.2 billion, supporting its strategy to power the next generation of AI cloud computing.
However, the Coreweave stock (trading under CRWV) experienced volatility post-earnings, initially rising then falling as investors digested the high capital expenditure plans.
8. Industry Recognition and Product Innovation
CoreWeave continues to solidify its leadership as an AI Hyperscaler™.
- Its MLPerf Inference v5.0 results set a new industry benchmark using NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchips.
- It was the only AI cloud provider to receive the highest Platinum rating from SemiAnalysis’s ClusterMAX™ Rating System.
- New product launches included the general availability of CoreWeave AI Object Storage (CAIOS) and support for GB200-based instances.
Looking Ahead
CoreWeave’s Q1 2025 results paint a picture of a company rapidly scaling to meet the insatiable demand for AI computing power. While navigating significant capital expenditures and net losses, the impressive revenue growth, massive backlog, and key strategic partnerships, particularly with giants like OpenAI and IBM, signal a strong growth trajectory.
As CEO, Michael Intrator stated on the earnings call, “AI growth and adoption remains severely limited by capacity constraints. CoreWeave is scaling as fast as it can to meet the demands of our customers.”
The focus for Coreweave earnings and stock will be on continued execution, managing its capital structure effectively, and capitalizing on the burgeoning AI market.
The Coreweave Q1 2025 results underscore both the immense opportunities and the inherent financial demands of leading the AI infrastructure charge.
