CoreWeave is overhauling its financing approach by requiring customer prepayments and structuring loans against specific contracts, a shift disclosed in its third-quarter earnings report Tuesday. The neocloud provider is also moving toward shorter-term deals priced at a significant premium to lock in higher-margin revenue.
The company posted $3.66 billion in third-quarter revenue, up 168 percent year-over-year, but reported a $709 million net loss and $846 million in quarterly interest expense. CEO Michael Intrator said during the earnings call that CoreWeave would not tap unsecured debt markets at current yields, signaling a strategic pivot away from traditional capital raises.
Instead, CoreWeave plans to secure loans collateralized by specific customer contracts and draw funds as needed to fund the infrastructure required for its $132.5 billion backlog. The company expects to receive approximately $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits over the next three months, including more than $3 billion from new contracts for existing capacity that require no additional hardware investment.
The economics of this shift are stark. CoreWeave's short-term contracts command over $40 million per megawatt annually, compared with $20 million to $25 million per megawatt for new infrastructure backed by four and five-year agreements. The company raised prices approximately 25 percent in July and an additional 10 percent later in the quarter, with Intrator noting that pricing gains "more than offset" cost increases this quarter.
In August, CoreWeave closed a $2.6 billion loan facility, DDTL 5.5, structured specifically for shorter-term contracts and designed to allow drawdowns in installments.
This financing model reflects a broader industry trend. Competitors such as Nebius and IREN have secured significant prepayments from Microsoft for computing capacity, indicating that major cloud providers are now financing infrastructure buildouts through their largest customers.
The strategy carries inherent tradeoffs. While short-term deals offer higher per-unit pricing and frequent rate adjustments, lenders generally prefer longer-term contracts for their predictable cash flow, even at lower per-megawatt rates. CoreWeave's ability to monetize short-term demand depends on sustained pricing power in a market where supply constraints currently favor suppliers.
