CoreWeave posted 110% revenue growth and a $66.8B backlog, but weak Q1 guidance and $30B in debt rattled investors hard
CoreWeave stock dropped roughly 9% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the AI cloud infrastructure company delivered a mixed fourth-quarter earnings report. Strong revenue growth was not enough to offset a wider-than-expected loss and first-quarter guidance that landed well below what Wall Street had anticipated.
The company reported Q4 revenue of $1.57 billion, beating the $1.55 billion analyst estimate and representing 110% growth year over year. That kind of expansion would normally send shares higher. Instead, investors focused on everything around the headline number.
Where CoreWeave missed
The adjusted loss per share came in at $0.89, compared to the $0.49 loss analysts had projected. That gap was hard to explain away. Adjusted EBITDA landed at $898 million, short of the $929 million consensus. Adjusted operating income also fell about 27% from the prior year, signaling that the cost of building out infrastructure at this pace is eating into margins faster than expected.
None of that was the primary trigger for the selloff, though.
Guidance that cooled investors off
CoreWeave projected first-quarter 2026 revenue between $1.9 billion and $2.0 billion. Wall Street had been expecting $2.29 billion. That gap of roughly $290 million at the midpoint was not easy to dismiss, and markets tend to punish cautious outlooks more than they punish past misses.
Full-year revenue guidance of $12 billion to $13 billion came in roughly in line with the $12.09 billion analyst consensus, which offered some comfort. The company also projected an operating margin of around 8% for the year, far below what investors had hoped for. Management has pointed to a long-term target of 25% to 30%, but that destination still looks distant from where the company stands today.
A $30 billion debt load in focus
CoreWeave’s business model is straightforward. The company borrows money to build out AI server capacity, then rents that infrastructure to large technology companies including Microsoft and Meta. Demand for that capacity is clearly real. The revenue backlog grew to $66.8 billion from $55.6 billion at the end of the third quarter, with the average contract length extending to five years.
The balance sheet, however, reflects just how expensive that growth has been. Total debt, combined with lease obligations, sits at approximately $30 billion. The company reported $21.37 billion in debt as of December 31 alone. Interest costs are already squeezing margins, and capital expenditures are expected to climb from $10.31 billion in 2025 to somewhere between $30 billion and $35 billion in 2026.
That is a dramatic acceleration in spending for a company still running significant losses.
Infrastructure ambitions remain large
CoreWeave ended 2025 with 850 megawatts of active power capacity and 3.1 gigawatts under contract. The company is targeting more than 1.7 gigawatts of active power by the end of 2026, ahead of the analyst projection of 1.59 gigawatts. Nvidia GPU supply remains constrained, and average H100 prices in the fourth quarter stayed within 10% of where they started the year. Demand is also expanding beyond hyperscalers and foundation model companies into enterprise and government customers.
During the quarter, CoreWeave struck a deal with AI model builder Poolside, launched an object storage service, and raised its revolving credit facility to $2.5 billion from $1.5 billion.
Where the stock stands now
Despite the after-hours slide, CRWV was still up 36% year to date through Thursday’s close. The stock traded near $97.63 on Friday, above its 50-day moving average of $86.65 but below its 200-day average of $109.12.
Wall Street holds a moderate buy consensus, with 13 buy ratings, 10 holds, and 3 sell ratings. The average price target sits at $118.57. Analyst views remain divided, reflecting the tension between CoreWeave’s undeniable growth and the financial strain of funding it.
The central question for investors is whether the company can convert its massive backlog into revenue fast enough to justify the debt it is carrying and the losses it continues to report. Gross margin trajectory and contract conversion rates will likely be the most important signals to watch through the rest of 2026.