CoreWeave earnings beat revives AI trade as Anthropic IPO valuation climbs toward $1.5T
Key Points
- CoreWeave's better-than-expected earnings Tuesday sent shares up 26.8%, signaling renewed investor confidence in AI infrastructure after months of skepticism about debt-funded compute bets.
- Anthropic's IPO bankers are pushing valuation toward $1.5 trillion, up from initial $1.33 trillion guidance, as oversubscription suggests strengthening demand despite falling short of typical hot IPO levels.
- Enterprise software growth has stalled at 1% while AI compute demand accelerates, with new model capabilities in video generation and CAD handling indicating sustained room for infrastructure scaling.
Summary
CoreWeave Earnings Beat Revives AI Trade as Anthropic IPO Valuation Climbs
The AI infrastructure trade is firmly back. CoreWeave's better-than-expected earnings on Tuesday sent the Nasdaq erasing last week's losses, with the cloud computing group's revenue growth outpacing its own guidance. CoreWeave shares jumped 26.8%, still down roughly 50% from summer highs but a solid step forward after investors appeared to lose faith in the company's debt-funded bet on AI revenues.
The move coincides with Anthropic's push higher on the IPO calendar. Bankers are now weighing plans to increase Anthropic's valuation to $1.5 trillion in the coming days, up from initial guidance around $1.33 trillion. The range is currently $1.26 to $1.41 trillion. Oversubscription sits at 2 to 3 times, still short of the 10 times typical of hot IPOs but potentially widening as the offering closes within eight days. One analyst floated $1.2 trillion as a floor.
The broader trade narrative is back to shape: higher inflation, higher interest rates, and sustained demand for compute infrastructure. Enterprise software faces headwinds, but demand for AI compute continues to grow. Ramp's latest data showed enterprise software growth at just 1%, creating delta with Anthropic's own 13% growth claims, though this may reflect the difference between panel data and credit card signals. The longer-term argument remains that new model capabilities—video generation, complex CAD file handling—leave significant room for continued scaling. Semi-Analysis's GDPX benchmark moved from 12% to 16% on the latest Claude 5.2 results, still far from saturation.
Investors are being whipsawed between viewing AI as a generational buying opportunity and a classic value trap. But the underlying compute demand story appears intact, with new model releases continuing to demonstrate capability jumps.
Every deal, every interview. 5 minutes.
TBPN Digest delivers summaries of the latest fundraises, interviews and tech news from TBPN, every weekday.