Latest news with #BrianVenturo
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO ANNOUNCES COREWEAVE AS OFFICIAL AI CLOUD COMPUTING PARTNER
Aston Martin Aramco unveils partnership with CoreWeave as Official AI Cloud Computing Partner CoreWeave will help the team relocate existing data centre to their first large-scale cloud computing facility The team's new wind tunnel will be named the CoreWeave Wind Tunnel CoreWeave's cloud platform is purpose built for AI and accelerating computing innovation SILVERSTONE, England, May 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Aston Martin Aramco has today announced a multi-year partnership with CoreWeave, the first AI Hyperscaler, who joins the team as Official AI Cloud Computing Partner. CoreWeave is the leading AI cloud platform, purpose-built for the scale, performance, and expertise needed to power AI cloud innovation and meet the demands of accelerated computing. With Aston Martin Aramco, CoreWeave will support the team in relocating their on-premises computing infrastructure to a new, large-scale cloud computing environment. This move eliminates hardware constraints and enables the team to operate with greater agility, efficiency, and performance. Through its cloud computing infrastructure, CoreWeave will provide the speed, performance and expertise to unlock AI-accelerated engineering opportunities for Aston Martin Aramco. Supporting efficiency of car design, utilising this new cloud infrastructure will ultimately reduce the time it takes to design components on the car. The Aston Martin Aramco wind tunnel which came online in early March, will be named the CoreWeave Wind Tunnel. CoreWeave's branding will appear on the AMR25 from this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix. Lawrence Stroll, Executive Chairman Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team: "We're thrilled to welcome CoreWeave to the team. In the fast-paced world of Formula 1, AI cloud computing infrastructure is a decisive edge, and CoreWeave's cutting-edge platform, purpose-built for accelerated computing, will be instrumental to unlock new levels of performance. United by a fierce ambition to win, we're excited to harness the power of AI cloud computing together, transforming drive and passion into on-track results." Brian Venturo, Founder and the Chief Strategy Officer, CoreWeave: "As a lifelong Formula 1 fan and a passionate supporter of Aston Martin, it's an incredible opportunity to partner with a team that represents the cutting edge of performance and innovation. Formula 1 is a proving ground for what's possible when talent, technology, and ambition align. With CoreWeave's AI cloud platform, we're excited to unlock new opportunities in data-driven engineering and help accelerate Aston Martin Aramco's pursuit of excellence on and off the track." About Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team About CoreWeave Photo: View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bloomberg
20-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
CoreWeave's Platform ‘Decommoditized,' Says CSO Venturo
Brian Venturo, CoreWeave's chief strategy officer, says the biggest misconception about the AI cloud industry is that it's commoditized. CoreWeave's software and deployment differentiate it from competitors, Venturo tells Ed Ludlow on 'Bloomberg Technology.' (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CoreWeave co-founder explains how a closet of crypto-mining GPUs led to a $1.5B IPO
CoreWeave began trading on Friday with more of a shrug than a war cry. The company priced at $40 on Thursday, below the $47- $50 price range announced. It also trimmed the number of shares offered. All told, CoreWeave raised $1.5 billion and nabbed a $14 billion market cap on Day 1, instead of a hoped-for $3 billion+ raise and a much higher valuation. Shares also opened at $39 (ouch!), and closed at $40. A lukewarm reception. Still, the company's IPO lands as the largest AI-related listing to date, and the biggest U.S. tech IPO since the heady days of 2021. Sitting in an ordinary white hoodie in a bland conference room, and talking with a detectable Jersey accent, Chief Strategy Officer Brian Venturo told TechCrunch that he feels very lucky. That's because it all started when he and his hedge fund friends had some extra time on their hands after their last venture together went south. He had been working as portfolio manager for the energy industry hedge fund, Hudson Ridge, founded by CoreWeave cofounder and CEO Michael Intrator. They had built an ML model to help them pick investments in the data-heavy energy industry. There they met their cofounder, Brannin McBee, who ran the data firm they used. But after the U.S. veered into its fracking boom era, they closed Hudson Ridge, leaving 'a lot of time on our hands,' Venturo says. Next up: crypto. The wanted to get in, but first 'wanted to understand from the commodity side, how is this made,' Venturo said. 'So we started doing mining on the pool table in our Manhattan office.' Like eating potato chips, one GPU turned into 10. Ten turned into 1,000. The rigs moved from pool table to closet. 'Next thing we knew, we were in the most cliche place possible. We were in my grandfather's garage in New Jersey,' he joked. Then their friends in finance wanted in so they bought more. 'We were the largest Ethereum miner in the world for like two and a half years,' he says. 'At one point, we had 50,000 Nvidia consumer GPUs.' These were chips meant for playing video games on consumer PCs, not running 24/7 in 'a warehouse with no air conditioning or no ventilation,' he said. So the cofounders built 'crazy automation and health checking [systems] to run these low grade GPUs in the harshest environments." The team knew they wanted to use their GPU empire for other things, like maybe AI training. But they also needed to learn how. So they connected with EleutherAI, an open source group working on an LLM. CoreWeave offered access to their GPUs in exchange for help learning about AI training and announced a partnership in 2022. 'We thought we were just going to learn how the infrastructure worked,' Venturo says. But EleutherAI was working with hundreds of people building AI startups and 'it was this total springboard moment for us.' The good will from working with EleutherAI led these startups to become paid customers. It was 'total luck started the training business,' Venturo said. Stability AI got wind of CoreWeave through EleutherAI, and became a customer. The founders needed more capital to build better infrastructure. They went to dinner with Magnetar investors and 'I was literally pounding on the dinner table,' convincing them of the future of AI, Venturo said. Magnetar wrote them what he said was a $100 million check. OpenAI learned of CoreWeave through its work with the open source community. And Microsoft learned of the company through OpenAI. Microsoft became its biggest customer because it was OpenAI's biggest investor and sole cloud provider at the time. That's no longer the case. And OpenAI recently signed a $12 billion deal of its own with CoreWeave, bumping Microsoft from being its biggest customer. Today CoreWeave has 32 data centers and 250,000 GPUs, including Nvidia's difficult to obtain Blackwell chips, which supports AI reasoning, the company says. Venturo acknowledges that much has been made about CoreWeave's jaw-dropping $7.6 billion in debt, much of it due to be repaid in two years, FT reports. Against CoreWeave's $1.9 billion in revenues (even with, it says, $15 billion under contract), the debt is a big reason why investors have been cautious. However, Venturo insisted that CoreWeave has structured each customer deal to cover the debt used to buy the GPUs needed. More than that, though, he realizes that three hedge fund guys turned crypto miners who are now running an influential AI training infrastructure have been on a wild ride 'There's so many pieces of luck along the way, it's crazy,' he said. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CoreWeave co-founder explains how a closet of crypto-mining GPUs led to a $1.5B IPO
CoreWeave began trading on Friday with more of a shrug than a war cry. The company priced at $40 on Thursday, below the $47- $50 price range announced. It also trimmed the number of shares offered. All told, CoreWeave raised $1.5 billion and nabbed a $14 billion market cap on Day 1, instead of a hoped-for $3 billion+ raise and a much higher valuation. Shares also opened at $39 (ouch!), and closed at $40. A lukewarm reception. Still, the company's IPO lands as the largest AI-related listing to date, and the biggest U.S. tech IPO since the heady days of 2021. Sitting in an ordinary white hoodie in a bland conference room, and talking with a detectable Jersey accent, Chief Strategy Officer Brian Venturo told TechCrunch that he feels very lucky. That's because it all started when he and his hedge fund friends had some extra time on their hands after their last venture together went south. He had been working as portfolio manager for the energy industry hedge fund, Hudson Ridge, founded by CoreWeave cofounder and CEO Michael Intrator. They had built an ML model to help them pick investments in the data-heavy energy industry. There they met their cofounder, Brannin McBee, who ran the data firm they used. But after the U.S. veered into its fracking boom era, they closed Hudson Ridge, leaving 'a lot of time on our hands,' Venturo says. Next up: crypto. The wanted to get in, but first 'wanted to understand from the commodity side, how is this made,' Venturo said. 'So we started doing mining on the pool table in our Manhattan office.' Like eating potato chips, one GPU turned into 10. Ten turned into 1,000. The rigs moved from pool table to closet. 'Next thing we knew, we were in the most cliche place possible. We were in my grandfather's garage in New Jersey,' he joked. Then their friends in finance wanted in so they bought more. 'We were the largest Ethereum miner in the world for like two and a half years,' he says. 'At one point, we had 50,000 Nvidia consumer GPUs.' These were chips meant for playing video games on consumer PCs, not running 24/7 in 'a warehouse with no air conditioning or no ventilation,' he said. So the cofounders built 'crazy automation and health checking [systems] to run these low grade GPUs in the harshest environments." The team knew they wanted to use their GPU empire for other things, like maybe AI training. But they also needed to learn how. So they connected with EleutherAI, an open source group working on an LLM. CoreWeave offered access to their GPUs in exchange for help learning about AI training and announced a partnership in 2022. 'We thought we were just going to learn how the infrastructure worked,' Venturo says. But EleutherAI was working with hundreds of people building AI startups and 'it was this total springboard moment for us.' The good will from working with EleutherAI led these startups to become paid customers. It was 'total luck started the training business,' Venturo said. Stability AI got wind of CoreWeave through EleutherAI, and became a customer. The founders needed more capital to build better infrastructure. They went to dinner with Magnetar investors and 'I was literally pounding on the dinner table,' convincing them of the future of AI, Venturo said. Magnetar wrote them what he said was a $100 million check. OpenAI learned of CoreWeave through its work with the open source community. And Microsoft learned of the company through OpenAI. Microsoft became its biggest customer because it was OpenAI's biggest investor and sole cloud provider at the time. That's no longer the case. And OpenAI recently signed a $12 billion deal of its own with CoreWeave, bumping Microsoft from being its biggest customer. Today CoreWeave has 32 data centers and 250,000 GPUs, including Nvidia's difficult to obtain Blackwell chips, which supports AI reasoning, the company says. Venturo acknowledges that much has been made about CoreWeave's jaw-dropping $7.6 billion in debt, much of it due to be repaid in two years, FT reports. Against CoreWeave's $1.9 billion in revenues (even with, it says, $15 billion under contract), the debt is a big reason why investors have been cautious. However, Venturo insisted that CoreWeave has structured each customer deal to cover the debt used to buy the GPUs needed. More than that, though, he realizes that three hedge fund guys turned crypto miners who are now running an influential AI training infrastructure have been on a wild ride 'There's so many pieces of luck along the way, it's crazy,' he said.
Bloomberg
28-03-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
The New Billionaires of the AI Boom
In 2017, three former commodities traders took a gamble and started a crypto mining business. After crypto markets collapsed two years later, they pivoted to AI and began leasing out the GPUs they'd bought to large language model developers. Their timing couldn't have been better: CoreWeave — still led by co-founders Michael Intrator, Brian Venturo and Brannin McBee — is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Friday at a $23 billion valuation, the biggest US technology IPO since 2023. Board member Jack Cogen's stake is also approaching $1 billion. The company, which operates 32 data centers in the US and Europe, is a major compute supplier to Microsoft and owns more than 250,000 GPUs. 'When it funnels down to the physical infrastructure that's required to actually build and drive [AI] computing power, there's a relatively small number of companies that have the capacity to scale up and deliver,' Intrator told Bloomberg last June. 'CoreWeave is, fortunately, one of them.'
