As a core player in AI computing infrastructure, CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWV) holds a massive order backlog in the hundreds of billions, with business expanding rapidly, yet capital expenditure pressure and a financing gap have become the market's most closely watched concerns.
Goldman Sachs released an in-depth research report on October 21, 2026, maintaining its buy rating after breaking down the company's funding needs, with a 12-month target price of $106, implying 71.5% upside from the $61.82 share price on the report date, while warning that securing financing is the primary investment risk.
As of August 2026, CoreWeave's order backlog reached $129 billion, while in the second quarter of 2026 the company had only 1.5GW of power actually in operation, with 4.2GW of power already locked in and awaiting construction, leaving a heavy task for future capacity expansion.
The company uses a financing model combining DDTL special trust loans with SPV special purpose vehicles, allowing capital expenditure to be up to 80% debt-financed, with the remaining 20% required to be covered by its own cash, while 70% of business contracts carry customer prepayments ranging from 15% to 25% of total contract value, making the prepayment ratio the core variable affecting the funding gap.
The research report sets up multiple scenarios for funding calculations. Serving only the existing $129 billion order backlog, if GPU equipment has a 4.5-year useful life and there are no customer prepayments, the company would need an additional $37 billion in debt plus $12 billion in its own cash, with total internally available cash of $10.4 billion, still leaving a $1.6 billion funding gap that would need to be filled by customer prepayments, supplier credit, and operating cash flow from existing business.
Under optimistic assumptions including customer prepayments equal to 20% of total contract value and GPU useful life extended to 6 years, the minimum additional debt requirement could narrow to $19.5 billion. If the full 4.2GW of power capacity is completed, the company could take on roughly $263 billion in orders, nearly double its current backlog, corresponding to a need for about $38 billion in additional debt.
On the financial front, CoreWeave is in a phase of rapid cash-burning expansion. Revenue is forecast at $12.96 billion, $27.53 billion, and $47.54 billion for 2026-2028 respectively; while revenue growth remains high, the company continues to post losses and is expected to turn profitable only in 2028, with earnings per share reaching $3.36.
Weighed down by massive capital expenditure on computing facilities, free cash flow remains negative from 2025 to 2028, debt on the balance sheet is swelling rapidly, leverage is elevated, and the company relies on continuous external financing to keep operations running.
On valuation, as economies of scale are realized, the EV/EBITDA multiple is expected to fall from 10.6x in 2026 to 4x in 2028.
In terms of share price performance, as of the report date, CRWV shares had pulled back more than 50% over the trailing 12 months, significantly underperforming the S&P 500 index. The logic behind Goldman Sachs' target price is an 18x valuation on the company's Q5-Q8 standardized EBIT.
The report also clearly identifies several core risks: whether the massive financing can be successfully secured is the biggest risk; others include data center capacity construction falling short of expectations, a mismatch between signed orders and construction cost inflation, and declines in new and renewed contract prices due to changes in AI computing supply and demand.
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