# Michael Intrator
Michael Intrator is a business executive who co-founded [CoreWeave](https://www.edgepedia.org/coreweave) (Nasdaq: CRWV), the [Livingston, New Jersey](https://www.edgepedia.org/livingston-new-jersey)–based GPU cloud provider, and serves as its chairman, president, and chief executive officer.[1](https://investors.coreweave.com/governance/board-of-directors/person-details/default.aspx?ItemId=aff4caba-2eb8-4c16-80fd-1f9c93ea514b) • [2](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm) The company was founded in September 2017 as a cryptocurrency mining operation called Atlantic Crypto and, under Intrator's leadership, pivoted into cloud computing in 2019 and 2020 before becoming a major supplier of artificial intelligence computing capacity.[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) • [4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html) CoreWeave listed its shares on the Nasdaq in March 2025, raising $1.5 billion in an offering that left Intrator and his two co-founders with roughly 80% of the voting power.[2](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm) The company is based in Livingston, New Jersey.[5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/09/22/coreweaves-29-billion-bet-that-its-debt-fueled-ai-boom-wont-go-bust/)
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Role | Co-founder, chairman, president, and CEO of CoreWeave since September 2017[1](https://investors.coreweave.com/governance/board-of-directors/person-details/default.aspx?ItemId=aff4caba-2eb8-4c16-80fd-1f9c93ea514b) |
| Company origin | Founded 2017 as Atlantic Crypto, an ethereum GPU mining operation; renamed CoreWeave in 2019[4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html) • [6](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/cxo-insights/from-crypto-mining-to-ai-cloud-how-michael-intrator-built-coreweave) |
| IPO | March 2025, $40.00 per Class A share, $1.5 billion raised, the largest U.S. tech IPO since 2021[7](https://mlq.ai/research/coreweave-gpu-cloud-debt-nvidia/) |
| Voting control | Intrator ~37.5% of votes after the IPO; the three co-founders together ~79.9%[2](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm) |
| Revenue under his leadership | $229 million (2023), $1.9 billion (2024), $5.1 billion (2025)[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) |
| Backlog | $66.8 billion at end-2025, up from $15 billion[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) |
| Debt | Roughly $29 billion borrowed, largely in GPU-backed loans, as of September 2025[5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/09/22/coreweaves-29-billion-bet-that-its-debt-fueled-ai-boom-wont-go-bust/) |
## Early career and background
Before CoreWeave, Intrator spent his career in hedge funds. From September 1998 to July 2014 he worked at Natsource, a New York firm, according to CoreWeave's board biography.[1](https://investors.coreweave.com/governance/board-of-directors/person-details/default.aspx?ItemId=aff4caba-2eb8-4c16-80fd-1f9c93ea514b) It was there, in 2006, that he met [Brian Venturo](https://www.edgepedia.org/brian-venturo), who would become his co-founder; the two later created a hedge fund together.[8](https://yonkersobserver.com/how-coreweave-went-from-crypto-mining-to-wall-streets-a-i-bellwether/)
In January 2013 Intrator co-founded Hudson Ridge Asset Management, a natural gas hedge fund, and served as its chief executive officer until January 2018.[1](https://investors.coreweave.com/governance/board-of-directors/person-details/default.aspx?ItemId=aff4caba-2eb8-4c16-80fd-1f9c93ea514b) In financing CoreWeave, he used multi-year customer contracts as collateral to borrow against the GPUs themselves, rather than funding data centers out of equity cash flow the way hyperscalers do.[9](https://temperature2.com/p/2026-09-10-guide-what-is-a-neocloud/) • [5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/09/22/coreweaves-29-billion-bet-that-its-debt-fueled-ai-boom-wont-go-bust/)
## Founding Atlantic Crypto and the pivot to CoreWeave
In 2017, as cryptocurrencies were rising in price, Intrator and Venturo joined with [Brannin McBee](https://www.edgepedia.org/brannin-mcbee), and with [Peter Salanki](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-salanki), to found Atlantic Crypto Corp., which mined ethereum using Nvidia GPUs. Ethereum could be mined on general-purpose graphics cards rather than specialized hardware, which mattered for what came next.[4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html) • [6](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/cxo-insights/from-crypto-mining-to-ai-cloud-how-michael-intrator-built-coreweave)
When crypto margins compressed in 2018 and 2019, the same fleet became an asset for other workloads. One GPU turned into hundreds, then tens of thousands, Intrator wrote in a 2021 blog post, describing acquisitions of distressed hardware during the "crypto-winter" of 2018/2019 as the portfolio grew to seven facilities.[4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html) In 2019 the company renamed itself CoreWeave and moved into GPU rendering and AI training, and CoreWeave's annual report records that the CoreWeave Cloud Platform launched in 2020.[4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html) • [3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf)
## Funding, debt and the 2025 IPO
CoreWeave's growth under Intrator was financed largely with debt raised against its GPUs and its contracts. In August 2023 it secured a $2.3 billion debt facility led by [Blackstone](https://www.edgepedia.org/blackstone) and Magnetar; according to CNBC, that borrowing was collateralized by Nvidia GPUs and carried an actual interest rate above 14%.[4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html) In May 2024 the company announced a $7.5 billion debt facility, again led by Blackstone with Magnetar as co-lead and participation from Coatue, Carlyle, CDPQ, DigitalBridge Credit, BlackRock, Eldridge Industries, and Great Elm Capital Corp. At that point the company said it had raised over $12 billion from equity and debt investors in the prior twelve months, including a $1.1 billion Series C led by Coatue.[10](https://investors.coreweave.com/news/news-details/2024/CoreWeave-Secures-7-5-Billion-Debt-Financing-Facility-led-by-Blackstone-and-Magnetar/default.aspx) Later facilities include a $2.6 billion facility dedicated to OpenAI infrastructure and $1.75 billion of senior notes in July 2025; in January 2026 Nvidia invested $2.0 billion in CoreWeave stock at $87.20 per share.[7](https://mlq.ai/research/coreweave-gpu-cloud-debt-nvidia/) By September 2025, Forbes reported the company had borrowed roughly $29 billion, largely in loans backed by its GPUs.[5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/09/22/coreweaves-29-billion-bet-that-its-debt-fueled-ai-boom-wont-go-bust/)
The company went public on the Nasdaq in March 2025 at $40.00 per Class A share, raising $1.5 billion, with proceeds before expenses of $1,422,619,200 to the company and $35,380,800 to selling stockholders. It was described as the biggest U.S. tech IPO since 2021.[2](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm) • [7](https://mlq.ai/research/coreweave-gpu-cloud-debt-nvidia/) Before the offering there had been no public market for the stock, and the company had last been valued privately at $19 billion, with expectations of roughly $35 billion at listing.[2](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm) • [8](https://yonkersobserver.com/how-coreweave-went-from-crypto-mining-to-wall-streets-a-i-bellwether/)
**Founder control survived the listing.** CoreWeave has three share classes: Class A with one vote per share, Class B with ten votes (convertible one-for-one into Class A), and Class C with no votes.[2](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm) Immediately after the IPO, Intrator held approximately 37.5% of voting power, Venturo approximately 23.5%, and McBee approximately 19.0%, for a combined approximately 79.9%, on about 30% of the equity between them; Magnetar was the single largest shareholder at about a 25% stake, and each founder had sold more than $150 million of stock in private-market sales in 2023 and 2024, per the prospectus as reported by the New York Times.[2](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm) • [8](https://yonkersobserver.com/how-coreweave-went-from-crypto-mining-to-wall-streets-a-i-bellwether/) • [16](https://forbes-forbescom-live.non-prod.zephrcf.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/03/05/-cloud-provider-coreweave-just-minted-four-new-billionaires/)
## By the numbers
Revenue grew from $229 million in 2023 to $1.9 billion in 2024 and $5.1 billion in 2025, against net losses of $594 million, $863 million, and $1.2 billion in those years. Forbes put the 2024 net loss at $860 million, a negative 45% margin, and first-half 2025 revenue at $2.2 billion with a $605 million net loss.[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) • [5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/09/22/coreweaves-29-billion-bet-that-its-debt-fueled-ai-boom-wont-go-bust/) Committed business grew faster still: remaining performance obligations were $60.7 billion at December 31, 2025, up from $15.1 billion a year earlier, and the revenue backlog reached $66.8 billion, with weighted-average contract duration of about five years.[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf)
**Customer concentration remained the defining number of Intrator's company.** Microsoft accounted for approximately 67% of 2025 revenue, and the top two customers approximately 77%, down from 62% for Microsoft alone in 2024.[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) • [7](https://mlq.ai/research/coreweave-gpu-cloud-debt-nvidia/) The company said its cloud customer count grew roughly 150% in 2025 and that no single customer exceeded 35% of revenue backlog by year-end, versus 85% at the start of the year.[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) In physical scale, the company reported 43 data centers with 850 megawatts of active power and 250,000 Nvidia GPUs at the end of 2025, a 168% year-over-year revenue increase;[7](https://mlq.ai/research/coreweave-gpu-cloud-debt-nvidia/) Forbes had counted 33 data centers a few weeks earlier in September 2025.[5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/09/22/coreweaves-29-billion-bet-that-its-debt-fueled-ai-boom-wont-go-bust/) By mid-2026, active power reached 1.5 gigawatts, contracted power about 3.7 gigawatts (with the company's data center page stating 4.2 GW+ contracted across 51 data centers), and Q2 2026 revenue was $2.575 billion, up 112% year over year, against a backlog of roughly $104 billion.[11](https://tradepoint.io/best-gpu-neoclouds-2026-coreweave-nebius-lambda-crusoe-and-groq-ranked-by-published-pricing-and-contracted-power/)
## Major contracts and acquisitions
CoreWeave's contract book under Intrator is anchored by a small set of large commitments:
- **Microsoft.** The two companies have operated under a Master Service Agreement dating to February 2023.[9](https://temperature2.com/p/2026-09-10-guide-what-is-a-neocloud/)
- **OpenAI.** A master services agreement in May 2025 was followed by a September 2025 order form under which OpenAI committed to pay up to approximately $6.5 billion through May 31, 2031.[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) Analysts put the total OpenAI relationship at approximately $22.4 billion through May 2031, including an $11.9 billion deal announced in March 2025 (reported by CNBC as valued at nearly $12 billion over five years) and roughly $4 billion added in May 2025; OpenAI also invested $350 million in CoreWeave stock.[7](https://mlq.ai/research/coreweave-gpu-cloud-debt-nvidia/) • [4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html)
- **Meta.** In September 2025 [Meta Platforms](https://www.edgepedia.org/meta-platforms) entered an order form committing up to approximately $14.2 billion through December 2031; in April 2026 it expanded the agreement to $21 billion through 2032.[3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf) • [12](https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/michael-intrator/)
- **Anthropic.** The day after the Meta expansion in April 2026, [Anthropic](https://www.edgepedia.org/anthropic) signed a multi-year deal to run Claude on CoreWeave.[12](https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/michael-intrator/) CoreWeave says nine of the ten leading foundation-model providers now run on its platform.[6](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/cxo-insights/from-crypto-mining-to-ai-cloud-how-michael-intrator-built-coreweave)
On the build-out side, CoreWeave had about 850 megawatts of infrastructure contracted with [Core Scientific](https://www.edgepedia.org/core-scientific) as of July 2025, a relationship Intrator described as physical capacity "down the stack," in contrast with the 2025 acquisition of [Weights & Biases](https://www.edgepedia.org/weights-and-biases), a software layer, which he called an example of reaching "up the stack."[13](https://investors.corescientific.com/sec-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0000950103-25-008540/dp231328_425-transcriptceo.htm) On the August 2026 earnings call he described near-term capacity as effectively sold out.[6](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/cxo-insights/from-crypto-mining-to-ai-cloud-how-michael-intrator-built-coreweave)
## How it compares with hyperscalers and other neoclouds
**Intrator's model is contract-collateralized debt, not balance-sheet financing.** CoreWeave belongs to the "neocloud" category: specialist GPU rental firms that sign multi-year take-or-pay contracts first, then borrow against those contracts to buy hardware. A hyperscaler can shift idle GPU capacity onto storage, databases, and general compute; a neocloud cannot, so an unsold GPU-hour is revenue simply gone.[9](https://temperature2.com/p/2026-09-10-guide-what-is-a-neocloud/) The cost of that leverage is visible in the rates: over 14% on the 2023 GPU-collateralized facility and about 11% on more than $7 billion raised in 2024, against the low-cost debt of AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.[4](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html) Quartz, citing StocksToTrade data, put CoreWeave's total debt-to-equity near 8.9 with a current ratio of about 0.5.[14](https://qz.com/gpu-collateralized-debt-ai-neocloud-coreweave-financing-risks-050526)
Among neocloud peers, CoreWeave's contracted scale and backlog are larger. Nebius holds a Microsoft agreement of $17.4 billion base (up to $19.4 billion) and, as of March 2026, a second Meta agreement of up to about $27 billion, on top of a $3 billion Meta agreement from November 2025. Lambda closed a Series E of more than $1.5 billion led by [TWG Global](https://www.edgepedia.org/twg-global) in November 2025 and a $1 billion senior secured credit facility in May 2026, and holds a multibillion-dollar multi-year Microsoft agreement.[11](https://tradepoint.io/best-gpu-neoclouds-2026-coreweave-nebius-lambda-crusoe-and-groq-ranked-by-published-pricing-and-contracted-power/)
## References
1. [Michael Intrator, CoreWeave Investor Relations board biography](https://investors.coreweave.com/governance/board-of-directors/person-details/default.aspx?ItemId=aff4caba-2eb8-4c16-80fd-1f9c93ea514b)
2. [CoreWeave, Inc. Form 424B4 IPO prospectus (March 2025)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525067651/d899798d424b4.htm)
3. [CoreWeave 2025 Annual Report (Form ARS, SEC)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962826000193/formars.pdf)
4. [CoreWeave's 7-year journey to IPO wound through crypto before AI, CNBC](https://stg-aws01pub.cnbc.com/2025/03/30/coreweaves-7-year-journey-to-ipo-wound-through-crypto-before-ai.html)
5. [How CoreWeave's GPU Bet Made Four Risk-Loving Cryptominers AI Billionaires, Forbes, September 22, 2025](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/09/22/coreweaves-29-billion-bet-that-its-debt-fueled-ai-boom-wont-go-bust/)
6. [How Michael Intrator Built CoreWeave's AI Empire, Analytics Insight](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/cxo-insights/from-crypto-mining-to-ai-cloud-how-michael-intrator-built-coreweave)
7. [CoreWeave: The GPU Cloud Built on Debt and NVIDIA, MLQ.ai](https://mlq.ai/research/coreweave-gpu-cloud-debt-nvidia/)
8. [How CoreWeave Went From Crypto Mining to Wall Street's A.I. Bellwether, Yonkers Observer (New York Times reporting)](https://yonkersobserver.com/how-coreweave-went-from-crypto-mining-to-wall-streets-a-i-bellwether/)
9. [What is a neocloud, and how does it price GPUs?, Temperature2](https://temperature2.com/p/2026-09-10-guide-what-is-a-neocloud/)
10. [CoreWeave Secures $7.5 Billion Debt Financing Facility led by Blackstone and Magnetar (May 17, 2024)](https://investors.coreweave.com/news/news-details/2024/CoreWeave-Secures-7-5-Billion-Debt-Financing-Facility-led-by-Blackstone-and-Magnetar/default.aspx)
11. [Best GPU Neoclouds 2026: CoreWeave, Nebius, Lambda, Crusoe, and Groq, TradePoint](https://tradepoint.io/best-gpu-neoclouds-2026-coreweave-nebius-lambda-crusoe-and-groq-ranked-by-published-pricing-and-contracted-power/)
12. [TIME: Michael Intrator, The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2026](https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/michael-intrator/)
13. [Core Scientific 425 filing: transcript of CEO communications, July 8, 2025](https://investors.corescientific.com/sec-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0000950103-25-008540/dp231328_425-transcriptceo.htm)
14. [GPU-collateralized debt explained: AI financing risks, Quartz](https://qz.com/gpu-collateralized-debt-ai-neocloud-coreweave-financing-risks-050526)
15. [CoreWeave: Can Its GPUs Repay the Debt Before They Become Obsolete?, LongYield](https://longyield.substack.com/p/coreweave-can-its-gpus-repay-the)
16. [Cloud Computing Firm CoreWeave’s Cofounders, Board Member Are New Billionaires](https://forbes-forbescom-live.non-prod.zephrcf.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/03/05/-cloud-provider-coreweave-just-minted-four-new-billionaires/)
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*Initially written Sep 19, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026 · Last review: Sep 19, 2026*
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