AI mania tanks CoreWeave’s Core Scientific acquisition — it buys Python notebook Marimo

Core Scientific shareholders on Thursday voted out an offer to acquire all shares of partner and competitor CoreWeave that was valued at $9 billion at the time.

They did this after a ‘no’ advice from their largest shareholder, Sina Toussi of Two Seas Capital, a company that focuses on companies after bankruptcies. Core Scientific emerged from bankruptcy in January 2024.

Core Scientific, which started as a crypto miner and still is, shares that early history with AI data center provider CoreWeave, which also started as a miner.

But CoreWeave, along with investor and partner Nvidia, has now pivoted to serving AI workloads. From its IPO to date, the stock has risen from a market cap of $14 billion to $66 billion today (about $140 per share) as investors see it as a way to get in on the AI ​​action. It spent those shares on acquisitions.

CoreWeave had already signed a 12-year, $10 billion contract with Core Scientific to use its facilities for AI services, even as it finalized a deal announced in July to buy the company outright. The offer was a premium to Core Scientific’s then share price.

But investor Toussi thinks that Core Scientific can grow into a new CoreWeave on its own. “Since the transaction was announced in July, investment in AI infrastructure has accelerated, pushing the stock valuations of Core Scientific peers to ever greater heights,” he wrote. in his opposition letter. “Why would anyone vote for a transaction worth only $16.40 per share?”

So investors rejected the deal and CoreWeave walked away. Shares of Core Scientific rose on the news and the company now trades at a market cap of $6.6 billion.

Investors rejecting takeover bids in search of bigger bids is another sign that we are in an AI bubble, or at least heading towards one.

Meanwhile, CoreWeave is still shopping. Things turned around on Thursday Marimo taken overan open source Jupyter Notebook competitor, for an undisclosed amount. PitchBook estimates that Marimo has raised about $5 million.

Python notebooks are development tools that combine code, rich media, and explanatory text into a single shareable file. They are often used for interactive data analysis and AI app development, helping CoreWeave in its efforts to move up from hosting to building AI apps.