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Model the business · Nasdaq: CRWV

CoreWeave: a GPU cloud financed like a project

Weighed while the sand runs. What has been ordered sits in one pan and what was borrowed to build it in the other, very nearly level, while the sand keeps running.

CoreWeave has $103.7bn of contracts signed and $35.6bn of debt, and the question is whether the contracts pay the debt before the GPUs wear out.

By Surojit Chakraverti, founder of L3VLUP and an investor running a long-short healthcare and technology equities strategy.

On this subject: the CoreWeave, Inc. case.Updated 30 October 2026

Latest filing 22 September 2026 · Information to 30 October 2026

Remaining performance obligations, 30 June 2026Filing
$103,700.0m
Contracted, not yet delivered: not revenue and not cash.
Debt principal, 30 June 2026Filing
$35,551.0m
Eighteen facilities and notes, before $4.2bn issued in September.
Backlog per dollar of debtDerived
2.9x
Before the cost of delivering it and before interest.
Backlog cash / debt service to 2030Model
1.5x
At an assumed 55% cash margin; the notes due after 2030 are not covered.

How to read the figures

Every figure on this page is a cell in the CoreWeave operating model, and each carries one of four tags.

  • Filing what the company filed, with its tag
  • Derived arithmetic on filed figures, such as a proxy or a residual
  • Assumption a judgement of this page, never the company’s
  • Model what the model computes from the three

The business

CoreWeave rents GPU capacity to AI laboratories and companies from 43 data centres it leases, mostly on multi-year take-or-pay contracts: 98% of 2025 revenue came from committed contracts, billed whether or not the capacity is used. It buys the GPU servers and the networking, fits out the halls and borrows against the contracts to pay for them.

Revenue grew from $229m in 2023 to $1,915m in 2024 and $5,131m in 2025, and to $4,653m in the first half of 2026 alone. One customer, which the 10-K names as Microsoft, brought in 67% of 2025 revenue; in the first half of 2026 the two largest brought in 40% and 23%.

Three numbers that are not the same

Remaining performance obligations are contracts signed for capacity not yet delivered: $103.7bn at 30 June 2026. Revenue is capacity delivered in the period. Cash arrives on its own timetable: customers prepay part of a contract at signing, which is why deferred revenue rose by $4,174m in 2025 and operating cash flow of $3,058m would have been minus $1,116m without it. The model never lets one stand in for another.

At 30 June 2026 and for 2025, and what kind of number each is
MeasureFigureKind
Remaining performance obligations, 30 June 2026$103,700mReported, a GAAP disclosure: not revenue
Revenue backlog, 30 June 2026About $104bnCompany measure: RPO plus its own estimates
Revenue, FY2025$5,131mReported
Cash from customers, FY2025$6,556mDerived: prepayments arrive first
Adjusted EBITDA, FY2025$3,093mCompany, non-GAAP
Operating cash flow less capital spending, FY2025−$7,251mDerived
Debt principal, 30 June 2026$35,551mReported

Power, and what it earns

Capacity is counted in megawatts: about 1.5 GW active at 30 June 2026 against about 3.7 GW contracted, the rest sites still to be delivered. On the average of the year ends, a megawatt earned $8.48m of revenue in 2025 and $7.92m a year in the first half of 2026, and cost $1.78m and $1.99m a year in leases. No filing states what it costs in power, how much of it is drawn or how efficiently the halls run, so the model assumes all three and says so.

GPUs, depreciated over six years

Technology equipment is depreciated over six years, a life CoreWeave lengthened from five in 2023. Its committed contracts run about five years on average, so 16.7% of a server’s cost is still on the books when its contract ends. Depreciation was $2,454m in 2025, and the equipment in service at 30 June 2026 depreciates at $6,334m a year: the line that turns an adjusted EBITDA margin near 60% into an operating loss.

The debt, and when it falls due

At 30 June 2026 the debt was $35,551m: $13,643m of delayed-draw term loans secured on contracts and amortised from them, $16,617m of senior and convertible notes repaid at maturity, and equipment financing, a revolver and a customer deposit. $20,655m falls due between July 2026 and the end of 2030 and $19,096m after it, with the $4.2bn of convertible notes issued in September. Liquidity was $15,553m.

The forecast, and the race it is in

The model keeps three kinds of number on three sheets. Reported holds only what CoreWeave filed, each row with its document and tag or the statement that it is untagged. Derived holds arithmetic on Reported and nothing else: revenue per megawatt, the backlog roll, the fleet’s age, the debt by facility summed. Forecast holds the assumptions in three cases, every row an editorial judgement of this page and none of it the company’s guidance.

Set against the debt outstanding at 30 June 2026, the backlog signed by then leaves, at an assumed 55% cash margin, 1.51 times the interest and principal due to the end of 2030 (1.07 times in the downside, 1.69 times in the upside). It does not reach the $19,096m due after 2030, which falls due when 16% of that backlog is left to run and the GPU servers of June 2026 carry 9.5% of their cost. In the base case revenue reaches $27.4bn by FY2030E and the forecast still needs $9,854m of new money to 2030 beyond borrowing against new capacity. These are what the inputs imply, not a rating, a target, a fair value or a recommendation, and the page values nothing.

The base case, filed to FY2025A and forecast to FY2030E
$-20,000$0$20,000$40,000FiledForecast23A24A25A26E27E28E29E30E$m
  • Revenue
  • Adjusted EBITDA (the company’s measure)
  • Free cash flow less SBC (this page’s measure)
  • Forecast years: lighter bars, dashed lines
Read as a table
FY2023A (filed)FY2024A (filed)FY2025A (filed)FY2026EFY2027EFY2028EFY2029EFY2030E
Revenue$229m$1,915m$5,131m$12,063m$20,405m$24,700m$27,000m$27,380m
Adjusted EBITDA (the company’s measure)$104m$1,219m$3,093m$6,900m$11,733m$14,284m$15,697m$15,995m
Free cash flow less SBC (this page’s measure)−$1,125m−$5,984m−$7,881m−$18,682m−$13,558m−$6,044m$3,224m$9,549m

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