CoreWeave raises $1.1 billion for its GPU cloud infrastructure

CoreWeave, the self-acknowledged AI startup that “came out of nowhere,” has raised $1.1 billion in new funding. It has now received nearly $5 billion in venture capital and debt financing to help build cloud infrastructure to enable GPU-accelerated workloads, an expensive feat. The company said it will use the new investment to fuel growth across all areas of its business and expand into new geographic regions.

“CoreWeave is designed specifically to tackle the most complex and pressing challenges in high performance compute,” Mike Intrator, CoreWeave’s chief executive, remarked in a statement. “With this new round, we will continue investing in and working with the largest AI enterprises in the world.”

With the AI boom continuing, CoreWeave has the opportunity to play a big part in the development of the space, especially for companies that may not have the resources to buy their own GPUs. This is not just for consumer or enterprise startups either—CoreWeave’s infrastructure could benefit those in the science and medical fields, helping those builders spend more of their capital on other things that matter, such as their models and researching how to create better drugs.

It is significant that the company is using the new capital to expand into other regions. The company appears to follow a playbook similar to Amazon Web Services and Twilio, establishing more local infrastructure centers to reduce latency and offer better performance. Some may also see this as recognition by CoreWeave that AI development isn’t limited to companies in the U.S. and Europe, and providing a global network might be good business in pursuit of making AI available to all.

The Series C round, led by Coature, included participation from Magnetar, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity Management and Research Company, and Lykos Global Management. CoreWeave is reportedly now valued at $19 billion, up from $7 billion five months ago.