CoreWeave has now raised more than $12 billion in equity and debt through the past 12 months, per the company.
Following a recent $1.1 billion equity fundraising effort, CoreWeave, an artificial intelligence infrastructure startup, has secured $7.5 billion in debt financing to bolster its investments in cloud data centers.
Blackstone spearheaded the lending initiative, joined by Coatue, Carlyle, BlackRock, Magnetar, and other contributors. CoreWeave's recent valuation stood at $19 billion after its equity financing round just two weeks prior.
Investor interest in CoreWeave is driven by its pivotal role as a major supplier of Nvidia's chips for AI model processing. The surge in demand for this technology stems from businesses across various sectors rushing to integrate AI chatbots into their products since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022.
Given the limited availability of Nvidia's AI-focused graphics processing units, CoreWeave's privileged access to these processors has positioned it as a highly sought-after asset. Consequently, CoreWeave, backed by Nvidia, faces stiff competition from leading cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon and Google.
CoreWeave asserts on its website that it offers lower on-demand pricing compared to major cloud providers. Even Microsoft, the world's second-largest cloud infrastructure provider, has begun relying on CoreWeave to support OpenAI's computational needs.
According to Nvidia's finance chief, Colette Kress, speaking at a Citigroup event in September, CoreWeave demonstrates remarkable agility and efficiency in adopting and deploying technology.
A spokesperson for CoreWeave declined to comment on whether the company is leveraging Nvidia GPUs as collateral for the recent debt financing. However, Reuters previously reported that such GPUs were utilized as collateral in a $2.3 billion debt round last year.
The new debt financing will enable CoreWeave to finance servers equipped with GPUs, along with networking equipment and cabinets, according to the spokesperson.