CoreWeave Shares Drop 10% After Soft Q2 Guidance and Higher Capex Outlook
CNBC reported Thursday that CoreWeave shares dropped roughly 10% in after-hours trading after the AI infrastructure company issued soft CoreWeave revenue guidance for the second quarter and lifted its full-year capital expenditure outlook.
Q1 Beat Could Not Offset Guidance Miss
CoreWeave posted first-quarter revenue of $2.08 billion, topping analyst expectations of $1.97 billion. Sales more than doubled compared with the same period a year ago. However, the net loss widened sharply, reaching $740 million versus $315 million twelve months earlier. The company’s adjusted loss per share came in at $1.12, well beyond the 90-cent loss analysts had forecast.
For the second quarter, CoreWeave guided to revenue between $2.45 billion and $2.6 billion. The midpoint of that range fell short of the $2.69 billion Wall Street consensus, rattling investors despite the strong headline beat.
Spending Climbs as Debt Pile Grows
CoreWeave’s cost base is expanding at a pace that outstrips its revenue growth. Technology and infrastructure expenses surged 127% year-over-year to $1.27 billion in the quarter. Sales and marketing costs rose more than sixfold. The company also revised the low end of its 2026 capital expenditure range upward, now projecting $31 billion to $35 billion, partly reflecting higher component costs linked to supply chain pressures.
Co-founder and CEO Mike Intrator acknowledged the pricing challenge on an analyst call but said the company has strong supplier relationships and can absorb the headwinds while protecting targeted economics.
To fund its data center buildout, CoreWeave raised $8.5 billion in new debt during the first quarter alone. The company has now secured more than $20 billion in combined debt and equity this year and closed the quarter carrying nearly $25 billion in total debt. CFO Nitin Agrawal noted that S&P upgraded CoreWeave’s credit outlook to positive from stable.
Background: Nvidia Backing and Hyperscale Ambitions
CoreWeave went public earlier in 2026 and has since gained roughly 80% through Thursday’s close, far outpacing the S&P 500’s 7% advance over the same stretch. The company has leaned heavily on chip giant Nvidia, which purchased an additional $2 billion in CoreWeave stock during the quarter. Microsoft accounted for 62% of CoreWeave’s 2024 revenue, though the customer base is broadening. Ten clients are now committed to spending at least $1 billion on CoreWeave products. The company ended the quarter with a $99.4 billion revenue backlog and 3.5 gigawatts of contracted power capacity. Management reiterated a target of annualized revenue exceeding $30 billion by the close of 2027.
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