(Reuters) -Nvidia-backed CoreWeave trimmed annual revenue forecast on Monday, hurt by a delay at a third-party data center partner, taking the shine off a strong September quarter driven by burgeoning demand for AI cloud services.
Its shares fell more than 6% in extended trading, after Chief Financial Officer Nitin Agrawal forecast 2025 revenue between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion.
That was lower than CoreWeave's previous projection of $5.15 billion to $5.35 billion, and analysts' estimate of $5.29 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The customer affected by the delay, however, agreed to extend the contract's expiration date, keeping the deal's total value intact, the company said without disclosing its name.
CoreWeave has cemented its position as a key infrastructure partner for the biggest names in technology, landing a string of multibillion-dollar agreements, including a $14 billion deal with Meta Platforms and a new $6.5 billion contract with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which underscore the voracious appetite for AI-powering graphics processing units.
Its third-quarter revenue more than doubled to $1.36 billion, beating the estimate of $1.29 billion.
Echoing broader cloud industry trends, Agrawal said capital spending next year would more than double compared to 2025, when it expects to spend $12 billion to $14 billion.
Once a large-scale Ethereum miner, CoreWeave has reinvented itself by turning its powerful GPU infrastructure from crypto mining rigs into the backbone of a fast-growing cloud platform powering today's AI revolution.
Its aggressive expansion plans, however, hit a snag in late October when crypto miner Core Scientific terminated a $9 billion all-stock merger agreement.
CoreWeave stock has more than doubled since it went public earlier this year at $40 apiece, valuing the company at more than $50 billion.
Its adjusted operating income margin was down at 16% in the third quarter, from 21% a year earlier.
The company's margins could come under pressure from surging prices for AI chips, mounting competition for computing power and the steep costs of expanding its cloud infrastructure.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
