Good morning. CoreWeave is positioning itself for the generative AI boom as a top cloud provider, and the Nvidia-backed startup just added a finance chief whose experience among the sector’s biggest players can help his new firm, well, compete against the sector’s biggest players.
CoreWeave, which provides cloud GPUs crucial for high-powered AI computing, announced on Tuesday that Nitin Agrawal is taking over as CFO. He previously was VP of finance for Google Cloud.
Why join the startup? “CoreWeave is filling a void in the high-performance computing space left unaddressed by the legacy cloud providers,” Agrawal told me. “I think we have a unique opportunity to build the next generation of cloud infrastructure alongside the best team in the industry.”
Agrawal replaces Evan Meagher, who stepped down, according to the company. At Google, Agrawal said he and his team helped bring Google Cloud to profitability and developed its AI and machine-learning investment strategy. Before that, he served as CFO of Mapbox and held leadership roles at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.
“All of those roles have helped me learn the intricacies of operating a cloud business at scale and scaling new businesses in high-growth environments,” Agrawal said.
New Jersey-based CoreWeave was cofounded in 2017 by current CEO Michael Intrator; Brannin McBee, the firm’s chief development officer; and Brian Venturo, the chief strategy officer. It began as a crypto-mining company that used GPUs to verify blockchain transactions before pivoting to AI.
The startup announced in December it closed a $642 million round led by Fidelity Management & Research Co., with additional participation from Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, Jane Street, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross, Goanna Capital, Zoom Ventures and others. (That transaction values the company at $7 billion, but the firm declined to comment on that figure when asked by Fortune.)
CoreWeave announced in August that it had secured $2.3 billion in debt financing led by Magnetar Capital and Blackstone, with participation from Coatue, DigitalBridge Credit, and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, PIMCO, and Carlyle. The company also announced in April that it had raised $221 million in Series B funding led by Magnetar Capital, with contributions from Nvidia, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross, and a month later secured $200 million in a Series B extension, also led by Magnetar Capital.
‘Speed and reliability’
CoreWeave uses Nvidia’s graphics chips for data centers, and for building out data centers for AI computing, including a cloud-native AI supercomputer.
But what actually separates CoreWeave’s AI infrastructure from that of competitors? It supports “the most demanding workloads, using purpose-built cloud infrastructure, to perform at the highest possible level for GPU-accelerated compute workloads, rather than using commoditized infrastructure,” Agrawal explained. “That helps it to deliver both speed and reliability.”
As CFO, Agrawal said he’s focused on sustaining profitable growth, and “the best way to accomplish it is by keeping customer priorities at the forefront” and “disciplined execution.”
Given everything he’s helped build, and everything he still plans to build, I asked Agrawal to share his favorite piece of career advice. He offered two.
“At the end of the day, it’s the people that matter, so make sure you take people along with you in your journey,” he said. And you should “always keep a healthy disregard for the impossible while being grounded in reality.”
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
María Soledad Davila Calero curated the Leaderboard and Overheard sections of today’s newsletter.
Leaderboard
Patrice Launay returns as CFO of ShiftPixy (Nasdaq: PIXY), a hiring platform for the gig economy, after the removal of Douglas Beck, who was appointed CFO in January 2023, according to a regulatory filing. Launay previously served as CFO for ShiftPixy from January 2018 to July 2019, and also has work experience in auditing and as a financial consultant.
Andrew Flynn was named CFO of Turning Point Brands (NYSE: TPB), a tobacco- and smoking-related products manufacturer. Flynn will take over on April 1, when current CFO Louie Reformina’s resignation becomes effective. Before joining Turning Point Brands, Flynn served as the CFO of Connected Cannabis Co.
Big deal
"State of the Workforce Skills Gap" report released by Springboard for Business, a workforce transformation company, finds that 70% of executives say their workforce lacks the right competencies. The data is based on a survey of 1,000 corporate professionals at enterprise companies with at least 5,000 employees.
The top five challenges caused by skills gaps are difficulty in finding qualified employees, high employee turnover, increased recruitment costs, limited innovation and growth, and decreased productivity, according to the leaders surveyed.
However, workers want to learn. Seventy-seven percent of workers surveyed would like to acquire new skills for their roles or to advance their careers, according to the report.
Going deeper
U.S. inflation rose slightly to 3.2% year over year last month, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released on Tuesday. In a new Fortune report, "Inflation is now ‘moving more sideways than down’—and it could keep the Fed from cutting rates anytime soon." Analysts told Fortune that they’re "chalking up the 0.4% monthly rise in core inflation, which excludes volatile commodities like food and energy, to 'sticky' prices that lag a few months behind where the economy actually is." And the Fed certainly won't be cutting rates later this month, perhaps in June or beyond.
Overheard
“It’s not what you have or what you make, it’s what you keep. What you keep every year, what you keep when you die…what you keep if there’s a slip and fall in your house and they come after you for everything.”
— Charlie Garcia, managing partner of R360, an exclusive community for the ultrawealthy, told Fortune. Garcia argued that Florida’s tax policy, which has no capital gains tax, no estate tax, and no income tax, is one of the main attractions for the wave of millionaires and billionaires that are moving to the Sunshine State.
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