*

CoreWeave to issue shares worth $350 million to OpenAI in

private placement

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Deal boosts CoreWeave ahead of 2025 IPO

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CoreWeave aims for $35 billion valuation in IPO

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CoreWeave's revenue jumps to $1.92 billion in 2024 from

$228.9

million in 2023

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Net loss widens to $863.4 million from $593.7 million in

2023

(Adds statement from CoreWeave, updates throughout to change

sourcing)

By Echo Wang

NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - CoreWeave, an artificial

intelligence startup backed by Nvidia ( NVDA ), has signed a

five-year contract worth $11.9 billion with OpenAI ahead of its

hotly anticipated stock market launch.

As part of the pact, CoreWeave will provide AI

infrastructure to OpenAI, CoreWeave said in a statement on

Monday, confirming an earlier exclusive report from Reuters.

The deal will give OpenAI a stake in CoreWeave, which will

issue shares worth $350 million to the ChatGPT maker through a

private placement at the time of its initial public offering.

Livingston, New Jersey-based CoreWeave, which is one of

the hottest AI startups in the U.S., will not receive any

proceeds as part of the share issue to OpenAI.

"CoreWeave is an important addition to OpenAI's

infrastructure portfolio, complementing our commercial deals

with Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Oracle, and our joint venture with SoftBank

on Stargate," said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

The deal provides a major boost to CoreWeave ahead of its

blockbuster share sale, which is expected to headline the U.S.

IPO lineup for 2025.

The discussions with OpenAI come at a time when investor

interest in generative AI is sky-rocketing. The AI boom, which

has powered chipmakers such as Nvidia ( NVDA ) and other big tech firms,

has driven a surge in global demand for infrastructure such as

data centers and high-powered servers.

A successful IPO for CoreWeave could pave the way for other

AI startups that have recently considered tapping public

markets. Data center operator Switch has been weighing an IPO at

a valuation of about $40 billion, including debt, Reuters

reported last year.

MARQUEE IPO

Founded in 2017, CoreWeave provides access to data centers

and high-powered chips for AI workloads, mainly supplied by

Nvidia ( NVDA ). It competes against cloud providers such as Microsoft's ( MSFT )

Azure and Amazon's ( AMZN ) AWS.

CoreWeave, whose customers include big tech companies

including Meta, IBM ( IBM ), and Microsoft ( MSFT ), is

expected to target a valuation of more than $35 billion in its

stock market listing, Reuters reported in November.

In its IPO filing earlier in March, CoreWeave reported

revenue of $1.92 billion in 2024, compared with $228.9 million a

year earlier. Its net loss widened to $863.4 million during the

same period from $593.7 million in 2023. Roughly two-thirds of

its revenue came from Microsoft ( MSFT ), which is the company's biggest

customer.

CoreWeave has raised more than $14.5 billion in debt and

equity across 12 financing rounds, according to data compiled by

Reuters. Last year, CoreWeave raised over $7 billion in one of

the largest private debt financing rounds in history, led by

asset managers Blackstone and Magnetar.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs are the

lead underwriters for CoreWeave's upcoming stock market

flotation. CoreWeave's shares are expected to trade on the

Nasdaq under the symbol CRWV.