CoreWeave said its revenue backlog was approximately $132.5 billion at 30 September, up from approximately $104 billion at 30 June, in its third-quarter release filed with the SEC on 10 November. That is about $28.5 billion added in one quarter, a 27% rise, by our arithmetic.
Third-quarter revenue was $3,661 million, $61 million above the top of the $3.45 billion to $3.6 billion range the company gave in August, and 42% above the second quarter’s $2,575 million, by our arithmetic. Adjusted operating income was $379 million against a guided $200 million to $260 million.
Business Pill · Financial Conditions Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on financial conditions. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss CoreWeave.
The key insight: CoreWeave reported third-quarter revenue of $3,661 million on 10 November, $61 million above the top of the range it gave in August, and a revenue backlog of approximately $132.5 billion at 30 September. That is about $28.5 billion more than the approximately $104 billion at 30 June, a 27% rise in one quarter by our arithmetic.
On its 11 August call, CoreWeave said it expected “Q3 revenue to be in the range of $3.45 billion to $3.6 billion” and “Q3 adjusted operating income of $200 million to $260 million”. Revenue came in 3.9% above the $3.525 billion midpoint, and adjusted operating income was 46% above the top of its range, by our arithmetic.
The company had guided “Q3 interest expense” to “the range of $860 million to $940 million”. Net interest expense was $846 million, below the low end. That was 23.1% of revenue, against 24.9% in the second quarter, by our arithmetic. GAAP operating income was $207 million and the net loss was $709 million, against $110 million a year earlier.
Chief executive Michael Intrator said in the release: “This was a breakout quarter for CoreWeave, with revenue increasing by more than $1 billion sequentially and adjusted operating margins reaching double digits a quarter ahead of plan”. The release puts the adjusted operating margin at 10% and the adjusted EBITDA margin at 62%.
CoreWeave revenue backlog was approximately $132.5 billion at 30 September 2026, against approximately $104 billion at 30 June; quarterly revenue was $3.66 billion in Q3 and $2.58 billion in Q2. Source: CoreWeave Q2 and Q3 2026 earnings releases (SEC 8-K Ex. 99.1). The change is our arithmetic.
Other Q3 Metrics: ๐น Revenue Backlog: ~$132.5B ๐น Active Power: >1.7 GW; +200 MW added ๐น Contracted Power: >4.6 GW; +900 MW added ๐น International Power: >1.3 GW
Announcements: ๐น CoreWeave Forge: AI development environment launched ๐น Vera Rubin NVL72: 4.8x greater token throughput ๐น Convertible Notes: ~$4.2B raised ๐น DDTL 5.5 Facility: $2.6B closed
Comments: ๐ธ โThis was a breakout quarter for CoreWeave, with revenue increasing by more than $1 billion sequentially and adjusted operating margins reaching double digits a quarter ahead of plan.โ
๐ธ โapproximately $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits expected in the next three months alone.โ
Wall St Engine posted CoreWeave’s third-quarter highlights on 10 November: revenue of $3.66 billion against a $3.55 billion estimate, adjusted operating income of $379 million, adjusted EBITDA of $2.26 billion, a raised full-year guide, about $132.5 billion of backlog, power figures, the CoreWeave Forge launch, Vera Rubin NVL72 throughput, about $4.2 billion of convertible notes and the $2.6 billion DDTL 5.5 facility. The estimates are the poster’s. The post lists the adjusted operating income guide as $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion; CoreWeave’s release gives $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion, the figure this piece uses.
What the Company Raised
CoreWeave said: “We are raising our full year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $13.0 billion to $13.3 billion”. With $8,314 million of revenue in the first nine months, that implies fourth-quarter revenue of about $4.69 billion to $4.99 billion, by our arithmetic. On its August call it had guided to $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion.
It raised full-year adjusted operating income guidance to $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion, which it said is “a 26% increase at the midpoint compared with our prior guidance”. It now expects full-year capital expenditures of $37 billion to $39 billion, and said it is “raising our annualized run-rate revenue” guidance to $20 billion to $21 billion to exit 2026, up from the $18.5 billion to $19.5 billion it gave in August.
It said it expects “interest expense for Q4 2026 in the range of $1.05 to $1.15 billion”. The $1.10 billion midpoint is 30% above the third quarter’s $846 million, by our arithmetic.
Power and Customers
The release says CoreWeave added more than 200 MW of active power to reach over 1.7 GW, and grew contracted power by more than 900 MW to over 4.6 GW. It names Canva, Substack and Wayve among new customers and OpenAI, Perplexity and Jane Street among expanded ones. We reported the Wayve deal a day before the results.
On funding, Intrator said growth is supported by “approximately $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits expected in the next three months alone”. The release lists an upsized convertible note offering of about $4.2 billion and the $2.6 billion DDTL 5.5 facility.
Update (10 Nov): what else the release says. CoreWeave’s third-quarter release also says it still expects “more than 1.85 gigawatts of active power at year-end”, and that it has “more than 1.3 GW of contracted power” internationally, “including India, Indonesia, and Spain”. It says it launched CoreWeave Forge, “the AI development environment that integrates training, inference, evaluation, and agent development workflows”, and brought online multi-rack NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 deployments, “with the first production workloads for Cognition on the platform achieving 4.8x greater token throughput than GB200 NVL72”. Alongside the convertible notes and the DDTL 5.5 facility, it lists an “inaugural at-the-market equity program for up to 35 million shares of Class A common stock”. It says the higher low end of its capital expenditure range is “a result of our expectation to deploy infrastructure and deliver it to customers sooner than planned”.
Our arithmetic: the new adjusted operating income guide of $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion has a $1.325 billion midpoint, 25.6% above the $1.055 billion midpoint of the $960 million to $1.15 billion range given on the August call, in line with the company’s “26% increase”; the new low end sits $125 million above the old top. The capital expenditure midpoint moves from $37 billion to $38 billion, 2.7% higher. The 1.85 GW year-end threshold is 150 MW above the more than 1.7 GW reported for the third quarter, against more than 200 MW added in the third quarter. International sites are about 28% of the more than 4.6 GW contracted. The 4.8x throughput figure is CoreWeave’s, for one customer’s workloads, and we have not seen it measured independently.
As we read it, the quarter added about $28.5 billion of backlog against $3.66 billion of quarterly revenue, by our arithmetic. The company also guided fourth-quarter interest expense to $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion, so the cost of funding that build rises alongside it. Whether the backlog converts on schedule is not established.
Michael Intrator, CoreWeave Q3 2026 earnings release, 10 Nov 2026
“This was a breakout quarter for CoreWeave, with revenue increasing by more than $1 billion sequentially and adjusted operating margins reaching double digits a quarter ahead of plan”
Three Implications
FOR COREWEAVE’S GUIDE Revenue was 3.9% above the $3.525 billion midpoint of its own range and adjusted operating income of $379 million was 46% above the top of its $200 million to $260 million range, by our arithmetic.
FOR FUNDING COSTS Net interest expense was $846 million, 23.1% of revenue against 24.9% in the second quarter by our arithmetic, and the company guided the fourth quarter to $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion.
FOR THE FULL YEAR It raised 2026 revenue guidance to $13.0 billion to $13.3 billion, implying fourth-quarter revenue of about $4.69 billion to $4.99 billion by our arithmetic, and expects capital expenditures of $37 billion to $39 billion.
The framework says: “the capex race is no longer a corporate spending cycle. It is a sovereign-scale financing problem dressed in tech-company clothing.”
As we read it, a neocloud reporting $132.5 billion of backlog alongside a $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion quarterly interest guide is that financing question at company scale. The framework predates the results and does not discuss them.
What Is Not Established
The release does not break out how much of the $28.5 billion backlog increase came from any single customer. The backlog is subject to delivery and availability conditions, per the release’s footnote. The release says the quarterly 10-Q will be filed on or about the release date; it was not on EDGAR when we checked at 21:12 UTC. Guidance for the fourth quarter is the company’s own forecast.
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This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
CoreWeave reported third-quarter revenue of $3,661 million, above the top of its own guide, and a revenue backlog of approximately $132.5 billion, up about $28.5 billion or 27% in a quarter by our arithmetic. It raised full-year revenue guidance to $13.0 billion to $13.3 billion and guided fourth-quarter interest expense to $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion.
A note on sourcing. Figures and quotations come from CoreWeave’s third-quarter 2026 earnings release filed with the SEC on 10 November 2026, its second-quarter release, and its 11 August 2026 earnings call transcript. Percentages, differences and implied figures are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
