Nov 10 (Reuters) - CoreWeave beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue and raised its annual forecasts on Tuesday, signaling strong demand for its cloud services and easing concerns after a steep selloff over the company's massive debt.
Shares of the company were last down about 4% in volatile extended trading as investors weighed the revenue surge and concerns over the increase in its annual spending target.
CoreWeave last month emerged as the focal point of growing AI bubble fears, with investors
worried about heavy borrowing against the backdrop of rising interest rates to fund purchases of chips, land and energy for AI data centers that generate little return until they are leased.
Its stock has crashed more than 40% in the past month in a selloff that triggered a broader crisis of confidence in the AI trade.
Earlier in the day, AI juggernaut Anthropic kicked off a roadshow for its share sale at a lower target valuation than earlier estimates.
The $27 billion Nvidia-backed CoreWeave has never turned a profit, according to data compiled by LSEG, and had about $46.9 billion in total debt as of the end of September.
CoreWeave CEO Mike Intrator sought to ease some of those concerns on Tuesday, disclosing that the AI cloud company had $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits that are expected to flow in over the next three months.
"Customer contracts come first, and investment follows. Because CoreWeave's investments are tied to committed demand, lenders have something concrete to lend against and customers typically help fund the buildout," he said in a statement.
CoreWeave's contracted revenue backlog stood at $132.5 billion at the end of September, rising from $104 billion at the end of June.
At the same time, its quarterly capital spending jumped to $14.5 billion from $9.4 billion in the prior quarter.
Recent earnings reports from hyperscalers also hinted at delays in data-center projects and a slower ramp in spending. Among CoreWeave's stacked roster of customers are Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic.
CoreWeave now expects 2026 revenue between $13.0 billion and $13.3 billion, from $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion earlier. It also lifted the lower end of its annual spending target by $2 billion, now projecting spending of $37 billion to $39 billion.
Its third-quarter revenue surged nearly 170% to $3.66 billion, beating estimates of $3.55 billion, while a per-share loss of 95 cents came in smaller than estimates for a $1.16 loss, according to data from LSEG.
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
