CoreWeave, the first artificial intelligence startup to go public, finished its first day of trading at $40.01 per share, one penny above its initial public offering price set earlier in the day. The company’s listing has raised concerns among Wall Street investors about the economy and its business model.
The poor performance came amid a slump in the stock market and uncertainty over inflation and President Trump’s tariffs. The S&P 500 dropped 2% on Friday, one of its worst days since Mr. Trump’s election. CoreWeave’s listing already reflected skepticism from investors compared to a month ago.
Despite the challenging market conditions, CEO Michael Intrator expressed confidence in the company’s long-term prospects. He stated that getting into the public markets is what matters for us, despite this being “just a day.”
Analysts have mixed views on CoreWeave’s IPO. Samuel Kerr, head of equity capital market analysis at Mergermarket, noted that the U.S. IPO market is not as strong as expected and that CoreWeave’s timing was less ideal than it could have been.
Kerr pointed out that a more suitable time for CoreWeave’s public listing would have been earlier last year, after Trump’s election but before the stock market correction and release of a new chatbot by DeepSeek. The recent decline in Nvidia’s stock price has also added to the uncertainty surrounding CoreWeave’s business.
CoreWeave’s debt profile has raised concerns among investors. Despite generating $1.9 billion in revenue last year, the company lost $863 million due to significant debt financing costs. Kerr described CoreWeave’s high debt as something that I.P.O. investors have disliked for quite some time.
The company was founded in 2017 as a cryptocurrency mining startup and has since shifted to developing AI systems using Nvidia chips. Its customers include Microsoft, which accounted for most of its revenue last year, and OpenAI, which recently announced a $12 billion deal with CoreWeave.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/technology/coreweave-stock.html