CoreWeave Plans $1.7B Acquisition Deal with AI Developer Platform Ahead of IPO

After filing to go public in what is being considered a generational first, AI cloud infrastructure provider CoreWeave is slated to acquire AI developer platform Weights & Biases through a $1.7 billion deal.

The agreement, announced Tuesday, would merge CoreWeave’s high-performance computing infrastructure with Weights & Biases’ widely-used tools for building, monitoring, and evaluating AI models.

Financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed, while the transaction is tabled and expected to close in the first half of this year. Both firms did not immediately return Decrypt’s requests for comments.

The deal represents a significant consolidation in the AI infrastructure space as companies race to capture market share in the rapidly growing sector. Weights & Biases’ tools are used by over a million AI engineers from organizations including OpenAI, Meta, NVIDIA, and others.

But CoreWeave could run into challenges as it prepares for its public offering.

Matt Turck, partner at venture capital firm FirstMark, sees CoreWeave’s campaign as “the first IPO of the Generative AI era,” but warns of “unusual risk factors” with how the AI cloud provider positions itself.

“A negative take on CoreWeave and comparable companies one would often hear in tech circles is that the company is a “real estate play”, with limited technology and software,” Turck tweeted.

His critique is leveled with the fact that CoreWeave’s co-founders “come from a financial, rather than technological, background,” Turck added.

Such a setting could pose potential risks for CoreWeave, which began as a crypto miner focused on Ethereum in 2019, before gradually pivoting to AI as The Merge switched Ethereum to a proof-of-stake consensus in 2022.

Despite generating $1.92 billion in revenue last year, CoreWeave reported a staggering $863.4 million net loss in 2024. With just $1.4 billion in cash reserves, financing the acquisition may require additional capital raises as the company prepares for its Nasdaq debut.

The deal also raises concerns about vendor lock-in, as CoreWeave has indicated existing Weights & Biases customers will likely be encouraged to use their cloud services. This vertical integration strategy mirrors moves by larger tech firms that have attracted regulatory scrutiny.

The merger also faces potential regulatory hurdles given CoreWeave’s backing by NVIDIA and the combined entity’s control over both AI development tools and compute infrastructure.

Still, Weights & Biases CEO Lukas Biewald remains hopeful for favorable outcomes.

“We can build many more useful things for our mutual customers,” Biewald said in a blog post, adding that, “There’s a ton of innovation at the intersection of hardware and software to unlock right now.”