CoreWeave Inc (NASDAQ:CRWV) dropped its second-quarter numbers after the bell on Tuesday, and they were pretty good. The AI cloud company reported revenue of $2.58 billion, edging past the $2.56 billion analysts were looking for. Its adjusted loss came in at $1.03 per share, which was better than the $1.22 loss Wall Street had penciled in.
Revenue was up about 112.5% year over year, which is the kind of growth that makes you sit up and take notice. But the headline number here is the backlog: CoreWeave said it ended the quarter with a revenue backlog of $104 billion, reflecting what it called "unprecedented demand" for CoreWeave Cloud. And get this, that backlog doesn't even include more than $25 billion in additional customer commitments that came in early in the current quarter.
CEO Michael Intrator sounded pretty chipper in the press release. "CoreWeave reached an important inflection point this quarter as our scale began to translate into expanding operating leverage," he said. "Customer demand is accelerating, as enterprise adoption broadens and we continue to deepen our technology platform." He added, "CoreWeave is built on the conviction that AI is foundational to every industry and that realizing its full potential requires a purpose-built platform. This quarter reinforced that conviction."
Now, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. The company reported $2.62 billion in operating expenses during the quarter, which is a lot of spending. But it also ended the period with roughly $5.52 billion in cash and cash equivalents, so it's not exactly running on fumes.
Investors seemed to like what they saw. CoreWeave shares were up 8.15% in after-hours trading, sitting at $97.68 at the time of publication. That's a nice pop, though it's worth noting the stock has had a wild ride since its IPO earlier this year.
Executives are scheduled to discuss the quarter on an earnings call at 5 p.m. ET, and they're expected to provide forward-looking guidance. That's probably where the real action will be, since everyone wants to know if this backlog momentum can keep up.
For now, the takeaway is that CoreWeave is riding the AI wave hard, and its customers are apparently willing to commit serious money to get access to its cloud services. Whether that translates into sustained profitability down the road is another question, but for this quarter, the numbers were solid.
