Despite its stock price being halved, Goldman Sachs maintains a Buy rating: Holding $10 billions in orders, CoreWeave (CRWV) faces a major test with several billions in financing

According to Golden Ten Data APP, as a leading core provider of AI computing power infrastructure, CoreWeave (CRWV.US) holds orders worth tens of billions, with its business expanding rapidly. However, capital expenditure pressure and financing gaps have become the market's primary concerns. On October 21, 2026, Goldman Sachs released an in-depth research report, maintaining a buy rating based on an analysis of the company’s funding needs, with a 12-month target price of $106—representing a 71.5% upside from the report date price of $61.82. The report also warns that securing financing is the main investment risk.

As of August 2026, CoreWeave’s order backlog had reached $129 billion. In the second quarter of 2026, the company had only 1.5GW of power in operation, with an additional 4.2GW of power capacity locked in for future construction, signaling a heavy workload for capacity expansion going forward.

The company adopts a financing mode combining DDTL dedicated trust loans with SPV special purpose entities, under which capital expenditure can be funded up to 80% by debt and the remaining 20% must be covered by the company’s own cash. Seventy percent of business contracts include customer prepayments, which account for 15% to 25% of total contract value—the prepayment proportion is a key variable affecting the funding gap.

The research report sets multiple scenarios for funding calculations. To serve only the existing $129 billion in orders, assuming GPUs are used for 4.5 years with no customer prepayments, the company would need to add $37 billion in debt and $12 billion in own cash. With $10.4 billion of internally available cash, there would still be a $1.6 billion funding gap, to be filled by customer prepayments, supplier credit, and operating cash flow from existing business.

Under the optimistic assumption of 20% customer prepayment of total contract value and an extended GPU lifespan of 6 years, the debt requirement could be narrowed to as little as $19.5 billion. If all 4.2GW of power capacity is built, the company could take orders worth approximately $263 billion—nearly double the current backlog—requiring an additional $38 billion in debt.

Financially, CoreWeave is in a period of rapid cash burn and expansion. Forecast revenues for 2026-2028 are $12.96 billion, $27.53 billion, and $47.54 billion, respectively. Although revenue growth remains high, the company continues to operate at a loss and is expected to turn profitable only by 2028, with earnings per share reaching $3.36.

Due to the huge capital expenditure for computing power infrastructure, free cash flow remains negative from 2025 to 2028, while debt on the balance sheet grows rapidly and leverage stays high, relying on continual external financing to keep the business running. In terms of valuation, as scale effects are unleashed, the EV/EBITDA ratio will decline from 10.6x in 2026 to 4x by 2028.

In terms of stock performance, as of the report date, CRWV’s share price had dropped more than 50% in the past 12 months, significantly underperforming the S&P 500 index. Goldman Sachs’s target price logic is based on a valuation of 18 times standardized Q5-Q8 EBITDA. The report also highlights multiple core risks: the biggest risk is whether the massive financing can be completed smoothly; additional risks include underperformance in data center capacity building, mismatch between order signings and construction cost inflation, and changes in AI computing power supply and demand leading to price declines for new and renewed contracts.