CoreWeave, a specialist GPU-focused cloud provider, has secured $221 million in Series B funding.
The US company offers GPU-based cloud services for compute-intense applications such as rendering or AI.
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The funding will be used to expand CoreWeave’s cloud infrastructure for compute-intensive workloads – including the expansion of its US data center footprint. The company aims to open two new facilities this year, bringing its North American footprint to five.
The round was led by alternative asset manager Magnetar Capital, with contributions from Nvidia as well as former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and entrepreneur Daniel Gross, who co-founded the Cue search engine acquired by Apple in 2013.
According to TechCrunch, Magnetar contributed $111 million, with the remainder of the investment being split between Nvidia, Friedman, and Gross.
“CoreWeave is uniquely positioned to power the seemingly overnight boom in AI technology with our ability to innovate and iterate more quickly than the hyperscalers,” said CoreWeave CEO and co-founder Michael Intrator. “Magnetar’s strong, continued partnership and financial support as lead investor in this Series B round ensures we can maintain that momentum without skipping a beat. Additionally, we’re thrilled to expand our collaboration with the team at Nvidia.”
Founded in 2017, CoreWeave initially focused on crypto and blockchain applications, before expanding out into more general compute. According to Crunchbase, the company has now raised $376.5 million, with Magnetar a repeat investor.
2023 has seen CoreWeave acquire Conductor Technologies, a startup that delivers burst rendering solutions to visual effects (VFX) studios. This year also saw the company offering Nvidia H100 instances as well as Intel Xeon ‘Sapphire Rapids’ instances on its platform.
Manuvir Das, vice president of enterprise computing at Nvidia, said: “CoreWeave’s strategy of delivering accelerated computing infrastructure for generative AI, large language models, and AI factories will help bring the highest-performance, most energy-efficient computing platform to every industry.”
Ernie Rogers, Magnetar’s chief operating officer, added: “CoreWeave’s innovative, agile and customizable product offering is well-situated to service this demand and the company is consequently experiencing explosive growth to support it. We are proud to collaborate with Nvidia in supporting CoreWeave’s next phase of growth as it continues to bolster its already strong positioning in the marketplace.”
CoreWave currently offers three data center regions; US East in Weehawken, New Jersey; US West in Las Vegas, Nevada; and US Central in Chicago, Illinois.
