M. V. Cunha Profile picture
Jan 10 20 tweets 21 min read Read on X
I haven’t been this excited about a stock in a long time.

$NBIS is the most undervalued AI infrastructure company in the entire market, and I believe it will soon be recognized.

Here’s a detailed thread explaining the investment thesis: 🧵👇🏻 Image
1. The AI revolution is upon us, reshaping industries at an extraordinary pace. As businesses embrace AI-driven solutions, the infrastructure required to sustain this transformation is emerging as a pivotal challenge.

Positioned at the forefront of the AI infrastructure market, $NBIS aims to address one of the most pressing bottlenecks in the industry.

The demand for AI infrastructure is not merely growing — it’s skyrocketing. The shift to AI requires a new generation of data centers and compute solutions, purpose-built to meet the unique demands of these technologies. $NBIS is rising to this challenge, crafting advanced infrastructure designed from the ground up to optimize AI performance.

With a vision to scale operations to hundreds of megawatts of AI compute capacity, $NBIS seeks to empower the global AI ecosystem by delivering innovative, high-performance solutions tailored for the future.Image
2. Origins: From Yandex to Nebius Group

$NBIS's story begins within Yandex, a company often referred to as the “Russian Google” due to its dominance in search, advertising, and digital services in Russia and other former Soviet countries. However, the trajectory that led to $NBIS becoming an independent entity is rooted in one of the most turbulent periods in recent history.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Yandex faced severe geopolitical and financial repercussions. Trading of its shares was suspended, its founder was sanctioned, and its operations became entangled in regulatory pressures from both Western and Russian authorities.

By mid-2024, after a complex restructuring process, Yandex completed the divestiture of its Russia-based assets. Following this restructuring, $NBIS emerged as a standalone entity, fully independent and with no ties to its former parent’s Russian operations. I want to make this clear: there is absolutely no connection between Nebius and Russia. Its managers and board members changed their nationalities to either Dutch or Israeli – otherwise, they would not have been able to avoid the sanctions.

While $NBIS inherits its engineering expertise and assets — such as its AI cloud platform and Finnish data center — from Yandex, the company is charting an entirely new course. Its focus is on becoming a leading provider of AI infrastructure in Europe and beyond. $NBIS now operates with a seasoned team of engineers and researchers, many of whom were instrumental in Yandex’s success, particularly in building data centers, cloud architecture, and advanced AI tools.

As $NBIS scales its operations, it is transforming from a collection of legacy assets into a formidable AI platform. The company aims to deliver a full-stack AI solution encompassing everything from compute infrastructure to deployment and monitoring, with ambitions of establishing itself as a global leader in AI cloud services.Image
3. What is Nebius, and What Services Does It Offer?

At its core, $NBIS is a next-generation AI infrastructure company specializing in "compute-as-a-service". The company’s offerings are designed to address the growing demand for high-performance AI infrastructure by providing a comprehensive suite of solutions for developers, enterprises, and researchers.

$NBIS operates across three primary layers: infrastructure, platform, and applications, creating a seamless ecosystem tailored for intensive AI workloads.

1) AI-Centric Cloud Platform

$NBIS has developed an advanced cloud platform purpose-built for AI and ML workloads. It combines cutting-edge GPU clusters with scalable storage and managed services, providing the compute, storage, and tools required to develop AI models.

• Optimized for AI Workloads: The platform supports training, inference, and fine-tuning of AI models with state-of-the-art GPUs, including NVIDIA H100s and upcoming H200s.

• Flexibility: Customers can scale resources up or down on demand, catering to both small experiments and large-scale deployments.

• Reliability: Leveraging $NBIS' proprietary cloud software and in-house server design ensures low latency and minimal downtime.

2) Comprehensive AI Infrastructure

$NBIS doesn’t just offer raw computing power, it provides a fully integrated environment:

• Data Centers: Improves unit economics through increased energy efficiency and lower data center cost, while enabling scalability.

• In-House Server Design: The company designs its servers outside of NVIDIA GPUs, allowing for enhanced performance, faster deployments, and significant cost savings.

• Full Stack Control: From server manufacturing to cloud deployment, $NBIS controls the entire value chain, resulting in superior optimization and efficiency.

• Managed Services: Tools like Apache Spark and MLflow simplify operations, enabling users to focus on innovation instead of infrastructure management.

3) AI Studio

The Nebius AI Studio is a SaaS platform that integrates APIs for open-source models, simplifying AI development for businesses and researchers.

• User-Friendly Interface: Pre-configured environments reduce setup time and maximize productivity.

• Cost Efficiency: Offers some of the lowest price-per-token costs for inference in the market.

$NBIS is more than just a GPU provider, it’s a full-stack solution tailored for the AI industry. By bridging infrastructure, platform, and applications, the company empowers organizations to unlock the potential of AI while staying agile in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.Image
4. Summarizing What Sets Nebius Apart

For those less familiar with the technical details of AI infrastructure, here’s a clear picture of what makes $NBIS stand out:

$NBIS is recognized as one of the most efficient and energy-conscious AI infrastructure companies globally, striking a balance between top-tier performance and sustainability. Its commitment to cost-effectiveness and operational excellence gives it a competitive edge in the rapidly growing AI market.

Industry-Leading Cost Efficiency

$NBIS delivers high-performance AI infrastructure at a significantly lower cost:

• 20–25% Lower Costs: Total GPU ownership and operational expenses are up to 25% lower compared to the average GPU provider.

• Integrated Value Chain: Full control over the AI infrastructure lifecycle — from in-house server design to proprietary cloud platforms — allows $NBIS to optimize costs and productivity while ensuring minimal downtime.

• Strategic Partnerships: Long-term relationships with leading server manufacturers (ODMs) help co-design and manufacture cost-efficient, AI-specific hardware.

Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

$NBIS prioritizes environmental sustainability without compromising on performance:

• Best-in-Class Data Centers: Achieving a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of ~1.13, placing it among industry leaders like Google and Microsoft.

• Supercomputing Excellence: $NBIS operates one of the top 5% most energy-efficient supercomputers globally, reflecting its advanced engineering.

World-Class Team and Expertise

$NBIS is powered by a cohesive and highly skilled team:

• Proven Track Record: ~400 AI/ML/cloud engineers and ~850 technology professionals bring an average of 10+ years of experience in fields like AI, ML, LLMs, and cloud infrastructure.

• Future-Ready Workforce: The team is strategically sized and equipped to support the company’s growth trajectory, ensuring sustained innovation and execution at scale.

This combination of performance, cost-efficiency, and energy-conscious design positions $NBIS as a standout player in the competitive AI infrastructure landscape.Image
5. How Are Nebius' Data Centers So Efficient?

$NBIS' data centers can achieve optimized cooling and heat recovery to enhance both cost-effectiveness and environmental sustainability.

Optimized Cooling

$NBIS' Finland-based data center employs free cooling, eliminating the need for traditional chillers, water, and refrigerants. This approach not only reduces costs but also minimizes the environmental footprint.

• Higher Operating Temperatures: The data center operates at a maximum temperature of approximately 40°C, which is about 10°C higher than the typical limit set by standard hardware. This higher threshold eliminates the need for inlet air subcooling and enables slower, less energy-intensive airflows compared to conventional designs.

• Broader Workload Range: The center functions effectively under 100% workload within a temperature range of 18°C to 40°C, in contrast to most data centers that aim to stay below 27°C due to server architecture constraints. This capability eliminates the energy demands of subcooling, significantly improving energy efficiency.

• Energy Savings: By operating without subcooling requirements, the data center achieves substantial energy savings, aligning with $NBIS' focus on cost efficiency and sustainability.

Heat Recovery

In addition to optimized cooling, $NBIS has implemented an advanced heat recovery system that repurposes waste heat for municipal heating, creating additional value for the surrounding community.

• Regional Innovation: The Finland data center is a pioneer in the region, using server-generated heat to meet local heating needs.

• Energy Reuse: Between 2020 and 2023, the center reused over 80,000 MWh of server heat for municipal heating, equivalent to the energy consumed by around 2,500 Finnish households for heating over four years.

• Meeting Heating Needs: More than 50% of the annual heating requirements of the nearby town were covered by this heat recovery system.

• Cost Savings for Households: The system contributed to household heating cost reductions of up to 12%, accounting for approximately 30% of the data center’s electricity costs.

$NBIS' approach to data center design showcases its ability to balance operational efficiency with environmental responsibility. The company’s plan to replicate these best practices as it expands its data center capacity positions it as a leader in sustainable technology infrastructure. These initiatives not only generate cost savings but also create long-term value for both $NBIS and the communities it serves.

Besides this, the company designs, develops, and produces its own servers, providing several key differentiating factors that result in greater efficiency and cost savings.Image
6. Strategic Partnership with NVIDIA: A Game-Changer for Nebius

$NBIS' long-standing collaboration with NVIDIA is a cornerstone of its growth and competitive advantage in the AI infrastructure market. This partnership not only provides access to the most advanced GPU technology but also underscores NVIDIA’s confidence in $NBIS' potential, as evidenced by its direct investment in the company.

$NBIS is at the forefront of integrating NVIDIA’s state-of-the-art hardware into its AI infrastructure:

• Blackwell GPUs: Nebius will be the first European provider to offer NVIDIA’s energy-efficient Blackwell platform in 2025, ensuring its customers have access to industry-leading compute performance.

• AI-Native Cloud Platform: Built from scratch with NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform, $NBIS' cloud environment is purpose-designed to handle intensive and distributed AI workloads with hyperscaler-level reliability.

This alignment ensures that $NBIS customers benefit from the latest advancements in GPU technology, positioning them to innovate and scale efficiently.

The company is also leveraging NVIDIA technology to expand its global footprint:

• The company’s Kansas City GPU cluster — set to launch in Q1 2025 — will house thousands of NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, with plans to incorporate Blackwell GPUs as they become available.

• With potential capacity for 35,000 GPUs, this cluster marks a pivotal step in $NBIS' U.S. expansion, bringing low-latency, high-performance AI infrastructure closer to American customers.

NVIDIA’s Investment: A Vote of Confidence

NVIDIA’s financial backing further validates $NBIS' potential as a leader in the AI infrastructure space. This partnership not only accelerates the company's expansion plans but also reinforces its ability to secure cutting-edge GPUs, ensuring it stays ahead in a highly competitive market.

By combining $NBIS' AI infrastructure expertise with NVIDIA’s hardware and cloud capabilities, the two companies are creating a powerful synergy that positions $NBIS as a global leader in delivering high-performance, energy-efficient AI solutions.Image
7. Data Centers and Future Investment Plans

$NBIS is investing heavily in its infrastructure to meet the surging demand for AI compute power.

$1B Investment in European AI Infrastructure

$NBIS has committed to investing over $1B by mid-2025 to expand its data center capacity across Europe. This ambitious program includes:

• Expanding Existing Facilities: The flagship data center in Mäntsälä, Finland, will see its capacity tripled to 75 MW, supporting up to 60,000 GPUs. At full capacity, this site alone has an estimated annual revenue potential exceeding $1B.

• Greenfield Sites: $NBIS is planning new, custom-built GPU clusters at greenfield locations, further strengthening its presence in Europe.

• Colocation Facilities: Strategic deployment of additional capacity through partnerships with colocations, including the newly announced GPU cluster in Paris.

The Paris GPU cluster, scheduled for launch in late 2025, will be among the first in Europe to offer NVIDIA’s H200 Tensor Core GPUs. This facility, along with the Finnish data center, will also feature the energy-efficient NVIDIA Blackwell platform, reinforcing $NBIS' technological leadership.

$NBIS' total power capacity is expected to grow dramatically:

• From ~30 MW in 2024 to 60–100 MW by 2025.

• Medium-term plans (2027-2028) target 240+ MW, supporting GPU capacity of up to 240,000 units. 🤯

This aggressive build-out of data centers aligns with the company's vision of becoming a leading global provider of AI infrastructure.Image
8. All in all, $NBIS stands out as a leading AI infrastructure provider by offering tailored solutions specifically designed for AI developers and businesses.

With full control over the value chain, efficient GPU operations, and expertise in managing data centers, $NBIS delivers cost-effective and highly reliable services. Its strong partnerships, particularly with NVIDIA, and a top-tier engineering team further solidify its position.

Unlike competitors, $NBIS combines flexibility, scalability, and customer-focused support, making it a versatile and innovative player in the AI infrastructure landscape.Image
9. Market Opportunity: A Large And Rapidly Expanding TAM

The total addressable market for AI infrastructure is witnessing explosive growth, and $NBIS is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend. According to its internal estimates:

• The TAM is projected to grow from $33B in 2023 to over $260B by 2030, representing a CAGR of 35%. This exponential growth is fueled by the increasing adoption of AI across industries and the rising demand for compute-intensive solutions tailored to AI workloads.

• A key driver of this demand will be inference workloads, which are expected to constitute 64% of AI server spending by 2027, up from 34% in 2023. As AI applications transition from development (training) to deployment (inference), $NBIS' comprehensive AI infrastructure is uniquely suited to meet these evolving needs.

External factors contributing to this opportunity include the rapid expansion of GPU-as-a-Service and AI cloud markets, which are anticipated to grow eightfold over the next seven years. This creates an immense runway for growth for infrastructure providers like $NBIS.

Internally, $NBIS is leveraging its competitive advantages to capture this market opportunity:

• Client Base Expansion: The company is focused on securing long-term contracts with existing clients while expanding into new customer segments. It also supports existing customers as they scale their AI workloads.

• Value-Added Services: By continually expanding its product range — such as API SaaS for open-source models — $NBIS ensures that it can address diverse customer needs, from developers to enterprises.

As the generative AI market grows, $NBIS is not just keeping pace but actively shaping the ecosystem with its focus on high-performance, cost-efficient, and sustainable AI infrastructure. With its ambitious expansion plans and strong strategic partnerships, the company is primed to capture a significant share of this booming market.Image
10. Now let's take a look at $NBIS' numbers 👇🏻

First, it’s important to note that the company has a super solid balance sheet with over $2B in cash and no debt. This financial strength provides ample runway to support $NBIS' ambitious expansion plans and capitalize on the booming generative AI infrastructure market.

Explosive ARR Growth

The company’s Annual Recurring Revenue experienced phenomenal growth, surging from $21M at the end of 2023 to a projected $170–190M by the end of 2024 (to be reported) — an 8–9x increase within just a year. This explosive growth has been fueled by:

• Client Base Expansion: The number of active clients grew from just 10 to 40+, with robust growth expected to continue as $NBIS penetrates new segments.

• Massive Capacity Expansion: GPU capacity skyrocketed from ~2,000 GPUs to 20,000+ GPUs, enabling the company to handle significantly higher workloads.

• Growing Consumption: Existing clients scaled up their AI workloads, driving repeat business and sustained revenue growth.

2025 Outlook

$NBIS expects to maintain this growth trajectory in 2025, targeting:

• $750M to $1B in ARR by year-end.

• Revenue between $500–700M, with the company achieving adjusted EBITDA profitability.

• $600M to $1.5B in CAPEX, primarily invested in: NVIDIA GB200 GPUs to expand computational capacity and data center expansion, including owned, greenfield, and colocation facilities, to support higher volumes for both existing and new customers.

Medium-Term Vision

Looking beyond 2025, $NBIS aims to drive multibillion-dollar annual revenue, supported by:

• Leveraging GPUaaS and AI Cloud growth: Capturing market share in these rapidly expanding verticals.

• Infrastructure Expansion: Significantly increasing GPU capacity and building more data centers (already discussed in a previous post).

• Client Diversification: Expanding into new customer segments, securing additional long-term contracts, and increasing its market penetration.

• Product Innovation: Introducing more value-added services, such as API SaaS offerings for open-source models, to better meet the needs of a growing and diverse client base.

With a combination of financial stability, aggressive growth strategies, and a market-ready infrastructure, $NBIS is poised to become a dominant player in the AI infrastructure landscape.
11. But $NBIS is more than just its core business, it has three other divisions that further enhance the company's value.

Toloka

Data partner for AI development: Toloka provides human-powered data solutions, enabling businesses and researchers to gather, label, and evaluate large datasets crucial for training and improving AI models.

AVRIDE

Autonomous driving technology: AVRIDE specializes in developing autonomous driving technology for self-driving cars and delivery robots.

tripleten

Edtech player: tripleten is an educational technology company that focuses on reskilling individuals for careers in tech. They offer online courses, training programs, and career guidance to help people acquire the skills needed for in-demand tech roles.

ClickHouse (~28% stake)

Open-source database: ClickHouse is the creator of a popular open-source column-oriented database management system (DBMS). Their database is known for its high performance and efficiency in handling large volumes of data, making it suitable for analytical workloads and data warehousing.

Let's understand a bit more about each of these divisions 👇🏻Image
12. Avride: One of the Pioneers in Autonomous Mobility Solutions

Yandex Self-Driving division was established in 2016, and Avride is essentially the result of almost a decade of developments.

Avride is a cutting-edge player in the autonomous driving sector, focused on both self-driving vehicles and delivery robots. The division stands out for its dual expertise, leveraging shared technologies to advance both passenger and logistics solutions.

Core Capabilities

• Team Expertise: Avride boasts over 200 engineers and developers specializing in self-driving technology, with more than seven years of experience in autonomous systems. Their operations span multiple R&D hubs in the USA, Israel, Serbia, and South Korea.

• Strategic Partnerships: The company collaborates with Uber to enable autonomous delivery and mobility solutions, underlining its role as a commercial leader in the space.

Technology Development

• Self-Driving Vehicles: Avride develops fully autonomous cars for applications such as ride-hailing, logistics, and food delivery. Testing has been conducted in the US, South Korea, and EMEA, culminating in robotaxi deployment within two years of public testing. The fleet has completed 47,000+ passenger rides, covering over 22M autonomous kilometers with zero serious accidents.

• Delivery Robots: Designed for diverse conditions, Avride's delivery robots operate on sidewalks and indoors, achieving speeds of up to 8 km/h with a range of 55 km. These robots have delivered over 200,000 client orders globally, showcasing their reliability in restaurant, grocery, and small-scale logistics.

Key Differentiators

• Efficiency and Safety: Avride achieves remarkable fleet efficiency, logging more kilometers per vehicle than competitors like Waymo and Cruise. Its technology has been tested in extreme conditions, maintaining an outstanding safety record.

• Commercial Viability: With ~$310M invested since inception, Avride operates at a fraction of its competitors’ costs, making it a highly efficient autonomous vehicle provider.

• Production Strength: In-house robot designs and a manufacturing partnership in Taiwan allow Avride to rapidly scale production while optimizing costs.

Growth Trajectory

• 2024: Deployment of 10–20 vehicles for R&D and over 100 delivery robots.

• 2025: Expansion to 100+ autonomous vehicles and 1,000+ robots, with monetization milestones and breakeven on contribution profit.

• 2026+: Unsupervised public launches in multiple cities, targeting double-digit million USD revenues with a fleet size exceeding 200 vehicles and 3,000 robots.

Avride's ability to rapidly deploy and integrate into commercial ecosystems positions it as a leader in autonomous mobility. Its ongoing partnerships, such as with Uber Eats in Austin, highlight its capability to expand operations globally. With an estimated funding need of up to $150M in the mid-term, Avride is set to further solidify its market position and deliver significant value to $NBIS.Image
13. Toloka: Powering Data-Driven AI with Scalable Solutions

Toloka delivers high-quality data and innovative solutions to support the development and scaling of AI technologies.

• Revenue Expansion Across Offerings: Focused on growing revenue across all product lines, while solidifying its presence in a rapidly growing market.

• Customer Growth and Retention: Securing new customers and increasing wallet share with existing clients through Classic and Evolved GenAI solutions.

• Tapping into Growing AI Demand: Capitalizing on the rising need for advanced AI solutions, including non-core GenAI services and a self-serve platform.

• Trusted by Industry Leaders: Toloka AI is relied upon by Big Tech, Fortune-500 companies (such as Microsoft and ServiceNow), and A-class startups. This trust is underpinned by the team's extensive ML expertise and robust research partnerships.

👉🏻 Projected Financial Highlights: 2025E revenue is estimated to be between $50M and $70M.Image
14. TripleTen and ClickHouse

TripleTen is a top-rated EdTech platform in the US, known for its high employment rates, excellent student feedback, and solid graduate outcomes. It offers a flexible, AI-powered e-learning platform that provides accessible pricing for learners and scalable operations for the business. TripleTen is expanding its presence in B2B and B2C markets, particularly in the US and LATAM, opening significant growth opportunities.

Key Differentiators

• Affordable Pricing: TripleTen leverages AI-driven automation and diversified trainer sourcing to optimize training costs, enabling highly competitive pricing.

• Top-Rated in the US: Achieves high employment rates (87% of graduates employed within six months of graduation) and excellent student satisfaction, outperforming industry benchmarks.

• Proprietary Technology: Offers a robust tech stack for seamless course launches and localization with minimal cost overhead.

• Extensive Support: Provides personalized guidance through expert tutors and real-world problem-solving scenarios to maximize student outcomes.

Growth Levers

Market Share Expansion in Existing Regions: Growing its footprint in the US to gain market share and expanding alumni networks to enhance enrollment efficiency and reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC).

• B2C Offering Growth: Launching new programs, including Cyber Analyst and UI/UX Design, to cater to emerging job market demands.

• Geographic Expansion into LATAM: Deep localization to better address local needs and rapid scaling of existing courses to penetrate LATAM markets.

• B2B Product Expansion: Developing corporate bootcamps in English and Spanish, and introducing role-specific assessments for data and development specialists.

Business Model Strength

TripleTen operates a highly efficient cost structure where CAC is fully covered by initial customer payments, ensuring robust financial sustainability.

2025 Financial Expectations: Revenue: $40–$60M.

Regarding ClickHouse, $NBIS owns only a minority interest in the company (~28%), so it doesn't hold the same level of importance.Image
15. Valuation - A bargain with significant upside and minimal downside

Based on its current cash reserves, $NBIS has an EV of ~$5B.

As mentioned, the company expects to generate $500–700M in revenue in 2025 and close the year with $750M–1B in ARR.

Assuming it achieves the high end of guidance (which is highly likely), $NBIS is trading at 7–8x EV/Fwd Revenue. While this is not a cheap multiple in absolute terms, it is relatively attractive compared to similar companies, especially when factoring in its explosive growth of 4–5x YoY in 2025 and likely 100%+ growth in 2026 (with continued rapid expansion over the following years, driven by GPU deployment plans).

If we assume the full deployment of 240k GPUs by 2028, the company could achieve over $4B in ARR by that time.

Applying a 30% normalized EBITDA margin (a reasonable estimate based on comparable companies) and a 15x multiple, would result in at least an $18B valuation — representing a 37% CAGR over three years.

Of course, these estimates may be completely wrong, but there’s a strong likelihood they are achievable.

Importantly, this valuation gives ZERO value to $NBIS' other divisions.

For instance, Waymo was recently valued at $45B. While Avride is not as developed, I think it could easily be worth at least 5% of Waymo’s valuation, or $2.25B. This alone would account for a significant portion of $NBIS' current market cap — essentially being "free" at the current price.

Additionally, Toloka, TripleTen, and the 28% stake in ClickHouse could contribute another $500M–1B to the valuation.

In summary, I strongly believe the market has yet to recognize $NBIS' intrinsic value. At its current price, I see a significant opportunity to achieve over 30% CAGR returns over the next few years, far exceeding the expectations of most investors.
16. Why is it so cheap? 🤔

• Execution Concerns: Investors are wary of the company’s ability to successfully execute its ambitious growth plans. Scaling operations to such explosive levels comes with risks, particularly around managing costs, maintaining quality, and achieving operational efficiency.

• Cash Burn and Financing: The rapid expansion and heavy investment in GPUs and other initiatives require significant capital. Concerns over potential cash burn and the possibility of additional equity financing (which could dilute existing shareholders) weigh on investor sentiment.

• Lack of Analyst Coverage: $NBIS is largely underfollowed, with no meaningful analyst coverage. This means many investors are unaware of the company’s true potential. The lack of visibility contributes to its undervaluation.

• Perceived Risks: Some investors may still associate $NBIS with geopolitical risks, despite the fact that the company no longer has any exposure to Russia. This misconception has likely kept some investors on the sidelines.

• Competitive Landscape: Operating in fields dominated by strong players, such as AI and autonomous systems, probably raises doubts about $NBIS' competitive advantages and ability to succeed against established giants. While the company has demonstrated impressive progress, skepticism about its differentiation and scalability remains a hurdle.

These concerns create a unique opportunity for investors who recognize the company's potential and understand that many of these risks are either overstated or manageable. As $NBIS continues to execute its plans and improve its visibility in the market, these factors should fade, leading to a re-rating of the stock.
17. Insiders' Alignment

The Founder and CEO of $NBIS, Arkady Volozh, brings an exceptional track record and strong alignment of interests with shareholders. Volozh previously founded and led Yandex, growing it into one of Europe’s largest tech companies, with a valuation exceeding $30B at its peak. His vision and leadership were instrumental in building Yandex’s dominance in search, AI, and other technology sectors.

He holds ~15% of $NBIS, representing around 90% of his personal net worth. This deep financial commitment ensures his incentives are fully aligned with those of other shareholders. With ~60% voting power, Volozh retains the ability to steer the company decisively, ensuring that long-term growth takes precedence over short-term market pressures.

Now a dual citizen of the Netherlands and Israel, Arkady has distanced himself from Russia and its geopolitical risks. He has been openly critical of Vladimir Putin, condemning his "barbaric" actions, which underscores his commitment to ethical leadership and operating in global markets.

Arkady's track record of scaling Yandex into a tech powerhouse and his substantial personal investment in $NBIS suggest that he is highly motivated to replicate his past success. His leadership and alignment with shareholders provide a solid foundation for $NBIS to achieve its ambitious growth plans.Image
18. Conclusion

All in all, I firmly believe that $NBIS represents a compelling opportunity for investors seeking exposure to the AI infrastructure market without the inflated valuations seen in many of its peers. The company possesses the critical ingredients for success: cutting-edge technology, a world-class team, and a strategic position in a rapidly expanding market.

With its proven track record of innovation and execution, I am confident that $NBIS has the potential to not only replicate but exceed Yandex’s past achievements in the Western world.

As $NBIS garners greater recognition from institutional investors and the broader market, its valuation is likely to reflect its intrinsic value. I anticipate 2025 will be a breakout year for shareholder returns, as the company’s growth trajectory and untapped potential become increasingly apparent.
19. That's it! 🫡

I currently don’t hold a position in $NBIS, but I plan to initiate one very soon.

While I typically avoid these types of companies, $NBIS stands out as a clear leader in the AI infrastructure market.

IMO it’s a rare opportunity that’s hard to overlook.

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More from @mvcinvesting

Oct 13
Everyone's talking about Rare Earth Elements (REEs), but few truly understand why they matter.

In this thread, I'll break down what makes REEs so critical, the global imbalance threatening supply chains, and the biggest challenge that still needs to be solved.

🧵👇🏻 Image
1) What Are Rare Earth Elements (REEs)?

Despite the name, REEs are not geologically rare. The term refers to a group of 17 chemically similar elements: the 15 lanthanides (atomic numbers 57–71) plus scandium and yttrium. These elements typically occur together in mineral deposits, making their separation and extraction complex and resource-intensive.

Since their discovery in the late 18th century, starting with yttrium, named after the Swedish village of Ytterby, REEs have gradually become integral to modern life. They enable critical functionality in technologies such as smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, medical imaging devices, advanced defense systems, robotics, and more.

Because of their unique magnetic, luminescent, and electrochemical properties, REEs are often described as the “vitamins” of modern industry.Image
2) Why Rare Earths Matter

REEs are foundational to the technologies that define the 21st-century economy and global security landscape. From decarbonizing energy systems to building autonomous weapons and intelligent machines, REEs are indispensable to innovation, infrastructure, and sovereignty.

Powering the Clean Energy Revolution

As nations pursue aggressive climate goals, REEs are increasingly recognized as non-substitutable components in technologies driving the energy transition:

Neodymium and dysprosium are used to create high-performance permanent magnets in EV motors, wind turbines, and hydrogen fuel cells. These magnets deliver exceptional strength in compact formats, allowing for lighter, more efficient, and longer-lasting systems.

Lanthanum and cerium are essential in automotive catalytic converters, battery electrodes, and energy-efficient lighting, technologies that reduce emissions and improve fuel economy.

Europium, terbium, and yttrium are critical in phosphors that illuminate LED screens, television displays, and medical imaging systems, offering not just efficiency but also clarity and precision in visualization technologies.

In short, REEs are at the heart of the global shift toward cleaner, smarter, and more resilient energy systems.

Enabling Robotics, AI, and Automation

The rise of robotics and AI adds another layer to the strategic importance of rare earths. These technologies rely on advanced electromechanical components, high-speed data processing, and sensor fusion systems, all of which depend on rare earth-enabled materials.

Permanent magnets made from neodymium, dysprosium, and praseodymium are critical in robotic actuators and motors, which drive movement in industrial robots, drones, surgical robotics, and autonomous vehicles. Without these lightweight, high-efficiency magnets, the precision and dexterity of modern robots would be severely limited.

High-performance sensors, such as those used in LiDAR systems, machine vision, and real-time environmental mapping, rely on rare earths for signal clarity and stability. These sensors are vital in autonomous navigation, object recognition, and situational awareness, key pillars of AI-driven machines.

In data centers and AI infrastructure, rare earths help in cooling systems and high-frequency components that support machine learning algorithms, language models, and high-performance computing. As AI models become more compute-intensive, the demand for rare earths in power-dense and thermally sensitive environments is expected to surge.

This convergence of REEs with AI and robotics positions them as critical enablers of the next industrial revolution, where intelligent machines will augment or replace human labor across logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, and defense.

National Security and Defense

The military also leans heavily on REEs for advanced weapon systems, communication equipment, and surveillance technologies:

Samarium-cobalt magnets are used in systems where thermal stability is paramount — such as missile guidance systems, fighter jet engines, and satellite communication arrays.

Technologies like night vision goggles, laser targeting devices, and stealth radar depend on rare earth materials for optical precision, energy efficiency, and electromagnetic resilience.

Autonomous military systems, including unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and drones, rely on the same robotics and AI capabilities discussed earlier. Again, underpinned by REEs.

As geopolitical tensions rise and warfare becomes increasingly digitized and autonomous, control over rare earth supply chains becomes a direct determinant of defense readiness.

All in all, rare earths are no longer “just another commodity”. Their role in clean energy, AI, robotics, and national defense makes them strategic resources, the backbone of future economic power and military superiority. For that reason, secure access to REEs is non-negotiable.
Read 9 tweets
Jul 28
As a highly concentrated investor, I rarely initiate new sizable positions.

However, over the past few weeks, I’ve been steadily buying $PGY.

I believe it could be an asymmetric opportunity over the next 12–24 months.

Here’s a Deep Dive explaining my investment thesis: 🧵👇🏻 Image
1. Origins

$PGY was founded in 2016 in Israel by Gal Krubiner (CEO), Avital Pardo (CTO), and Yahav Yulzari (CBO), three longtime friends and entrepreneurs who had already worked together on real estate and finance ventures prior to starting the company. Their friendship and shared entrepreneurial spirit laid the groundwork for what would later become one of Israel’s most notable fintech success stories.

The inspiration for $PGY emerged not from a single idea, but from a deep, ongoing conversation between the three co-founders about the future of finance. As Gal Krubiner recalled in an interview, a pivotal phone call changed their trajectory: “Real estate is nice, finance is nice, but tech is where the magic is happening.” They realized that to truly build something impactful and scalable, they had to move beyond traditional asset classes and embrace the power of technology, particularly AI and data science.

Their entry point into tech-enabled finance began with peer-to-peer lending, which at the time was a nascent and loosely defined segment. As they studied it more closely, the opportunity became clear: consumer credit was a $4T market, and yet it was underserved by traditional financial institutions and largely ignored by institutional asset managers. The trio saw a massive gap between demand and access, particularly among consumers who were deemed “unscorable” by legacy credit systems.

The company’s name, Pagaya, is derived from the Hebrew word פגיעה (pagiah), meaning “impact” or “connection.” This reflects the firm’s mission: to bridge the disconnect between borrowers and lenders, data and decision-making, capital and opportunity.

Founding Philosophy: Data Over FICO

$PGY's core insight was that legacy credit scoring systems, especially the widely used FICO model, were not equipped to assess modern credit risk. FICO is static, backward-looking, and rule-based, relying on a limited set of historical variables. This leaves out entire segments of the population: immigrants, gig workers, young professionals, or anyone without a long credit history. These consumers may be creditworthy, but the system fails to recognize their potential.

$PGY's founders believed that machine learning and alternative data could unlock access to credit for these underserved individuals. Drawing from Avital Pardo’s experience as the first data scientist at Fundbox, the team built AI models capable of ingesting hundreds of variables per applicant, including bank transactions, income patterns, job history, and behavioral indicators, to assess creditworthiness in real time.

Rather than becoming a lender themselves, they envisioned $PGY as a B2B2C infrastructure layer. The idea was to embed their AI models directly into the origination workflows of banks, credit unions, and fintech lenders. This would allow financial institutions to say “yes” more often while maintaining risk discipline, and without $PGY needing a banking license or large balance sheet.

Early Days and Initial Capital

$PGY launched its first major product in personal loans, initially under an asset management model that used AI to guide investment decisions. The company raised capital to manage on behalf of institutions and launched the Pagaya Opportunity Fund in 2018. Early investors believed the technology had the potential to one day manage sovereign-level capital.

However, as the founders would later acknowledge, the initial business model had limitations. The market for electronic, AI-driven asset management was not yet mature enough to support rapid scaling. By 2019, the team made a decisive pivot: rather than solely managing money, $PGY would offer its AI infrastructure directly to U.S. lenders to improve underwriting decisions. That transition, from AI-driven asset management to an embedded lending platform, was a defining moment in the company’s journey.

Growth and Transition to the U.S.

From that inflection point, $PGY rapidly expanded across the U.S. consumer credit market. The U.S. offered scale, regulatory fragmentation, and a deep ABS market, all favorable conditions for $PGY's model. The company soon began diversifying beyond personal loans into auto lending and point-of-sale (POS) financing. In 2024, it relocated its headquarters to New York City, a strategic move to strengthen relationships with institutional investors and reinforce its presence in the U.S. financial ecosystem.

$PGY's API-based integration allowed banks and fintechs to embed its AI underwriting tools seamlessly into their lending flows. The result was a frictionless experience for consumers, and a powerful tool for lenders to expand credit access responsibly.

One of $PGY's most important early milestones was partnering with U.S. Bank, one of the top five banks in the country. This institutional validation unlocked further growth and helped attract other top-tier financial partners.

SPAC Merger and Public Listing

In June 2022, $PGY went public via a SPAC merger with EJF Acquisition Corp, in a deal that valued the company at $8.5B on a pro forma basis. The listing was one of the largest fintech SPAC transactions to date and provided Pagaya with significant capital to scale its AI platform, expand lending partnerships, and deepen its U.S. presence.

Shortly after going public, $PGY became the subject of intense market speculation. In late July 2022, a dramatic short squeeze sent the stock surging by more than 1,000% in a matter of days, briefly making it one of the most talked-about SPAC stocks of the year. The float was extremely limited due to the high redemption rate by SPAC shareholders prior to the merger, which contributed to the sharp volatility and attracted retail trading interest.

However, the rally was short-lived. As the float gradually increased and liquidity returned, $PGY's stock price collapsed almost as quickly as it had risen. The extreme volatility drew scrutiny and contributed to broader skepticism surrounding SPAC structures, especially in the fintech space.

Compounding this were difficult macroeconomic conditions. Rising interest rates, tightening liquidity, and a sharp slowdown in consumer lending activity weighed on $PGY's core business. The company faced several problems that created significant pressure on reported earnings and sentiment, further exacerbating the stock’s decline throughout 2022 and into 2023.

Despite these headwinds, $PGY remained focused on strengthening its platform fundamentals. The company continued to expand its network of bank and fintech partners, and refined its AI-driven underwriting models. This strategic focus, coupled with a shift toward more capital-efficient structures, positioned the company to emerge from the downturn as a more resilient and scalable infrastructure provider.

“That experience matured us. Emotionally, it was a rollercoaster. For employees, it was the dream and its collapse, and all the noise made it hard to focus. But we came through it. There’s now a strong understanding and connection between the team and our business results. Ultimately, we’re helping people get access to credit, and that clarified our mission.”Image
2. Business Model (Executive Summary)

$PGY operates a distinct B2B2C fintech platform that leverages AI to underwrite consumer credit at scale. Unlike traditional lenders, $PGY neither originates loans nor holds significant long-term exposure to them. Instead, its core business revolves around using proprietary AI models to assess credit applications, enable seamless loan origination through banking partners, and monetize the process via fee income tied to both underwriting and capital markets activities.

This model, asset-light, fee-driven, and data-centric, positions $PGY as a "technology-first enabler" in the lending ecosystem. It combines AI-driven underwriting with capital markets structuring to serve a dual customer base: (1) lending institutions seeking better loan decisioning and (2) institutional investors looking for yield-generating consumer credit exposure.Image
Read 17 tweets
Jul 3
I recently added a new position to my portfolio.

In my view, this is a potentially asymmetric opportunity with explosive upside over the next 2-5 years.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of my investment thesis for $CLPT: 👇🏻🧵 Image
1) Origins

The origins of $CLPT trace back to the fall of 1998, when a pioneering group of researchers at Johns Hopkins University set out to redefine the use of MRI technology. At the time, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) was strictly a diagnostic tool — used to visualize anatomy and detect abnormalities. However, this team, led by Dr. Paul Bottomley, then head of Advanced MR Research at Johns Hopkins, envisioned a far more ambitious application.

Alongside Dr. Bottomley were Drs. Elias Zerhouni, Ergin Atalar, and Henry Halperin — all renowned scientists in their fields. Together, they envisioned using MRI not just to see inside the body, but to guide medical procedures in real time, enabling minimally invasive interventions with unprecedented precision. This idea laid the technological and clinical foundation for what later became known as real-time, MRI-guided therapy.

To commercialize this breakthrough concept, the company Surgi-Vision, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in 1998. In 2008, the company rebranded slightly to SurgiVision, Inc., signaling early steps toward refining its identity and commercial appeal. However, the most meaningful shift occurred in 2011, when the company changed its name to MRI Interventions, Inc., reflecting its commitment to real-time, MRI-guided procedures — a segment in which it would eventually lead with its flagship ClearPoint® system.

Finally, in 2020, the company adopted its current name, ClearPoint Neuro, Inc., aligning its corporate identity with the brand recognition of its most prominent product and signaling its broader ambition in the field of neuro-navigation and targeted drug delivery. The name “ClearPoint” has since become synonymous with precision-guided neurosurgery, positioning the company as a key enabler in the advancement of minimally invasive therapies for neurological disorders.

This evolution — from general surgical imaging to a focused neuro-intervention platform — reflects the company’s adaptive strategy and its ability to carve out a differentiated niche at the intersection of neurosurgery, medical devices, and biotechnology.Image
2) Business Model (1/2)

$CLPT operates a hybrid business model that straddles medical devices and drug delivery, with a clear long-term ambition: to become the backbone infrastructure for minimally invasive neurological procedures — both surgical and therapeutic. The company generates revenue through three distinct yet complementary pillars: neurosurgical disposables, biologics and drug delivery services, and capital equipment and software.

1. Neurosurgical Navigation & Therapy

The ClearPoint system enables MRI-guided procedures such as laser ablation, deep brain stimulation (DBS), and brain biopsies. Each procedure relies on proprietary, single-use consumables — such as SmartFrames, guidance cannulas, and infusion systems, three of the company’s products — billed per case. This creates a recurring, procedure-driven revenue model that does not require hospitals to make significant upfront infrastructure investments.

Beyond disposables, $CLPT provides clinical specialists who support surgeons in the operating room — a service that fosters long-term surgeon loyalty, though it carries higher delivery costs. In Q1 2025, this segment grew 70% YoY to $3.3M, driven by rising adoption of the SmartFrame OR and the PRISM Laser Therapy System. Management reported 35 procedures completed by 11 different surgeons using SmartFrame OR in early 2025 — demonstrating materially improved commercialization execution compared to the previous launch.

Importantly, the company’s latest navigation software (version 3.0) and the SmartFrame OR device enable neurosurgical procedures to migrate from MRI suites to traditional operating rooms, unlocking new hospital customers and increasing throughput. This software-hardware pairing is already seeing strong adoption and reorder intent from early users. Here’s why this is important:

MRI-Based vs. OR-Based Procedures

Historically, $CLPT's platform has been tightly integrated with the MRI suite because it offers real-time, high-precision imaging during complex neurosurgical procedures. This makes it especially valuable in cases where sub-millimeter accuracy is critical, such as:

• Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for movement disorders
• Drug delivery procedures, including those performed in clinical trials or pre-commercial programs with pharma partners

However, with the introduction of the 3.0 software, $CLPT is now expanding its footprint into the operating room (OR) setting.

Strategic Role of the OR: Unlocking MRI Capacity

ClearPoint’s 3.0 software allows hospitals to shift certain procedures — such as routine or standard DBS cases — from the MRI suite to the OR. This is particularly valuable because:

• Drug delivery procedures will increasingly require MRI access, given the need for real-time visualization and verification of infusion quality.
• These procedures can be longer in duration due to multiple trajectories or slow infusion times, which could otherwise block MRI access for standard cases.

By moving lower-complexity procedures to the OR, $CLPT helps hospitals free up MRI capacity in anticipation of future growth in therapeutic drug delivery — a market the company expects to expand significantly over the next 2–3 years.

Forward-Looking Mix and Flexibility

The CEO Joseph Burnett outlined a fluid trajectory for the MRI vs. OR procedural mix:

• Near-term: DBS procedures may grow faster in the OR setting as hospitals adopt the 3.0 software.
• Longer-term: MRI-dependent drug therapies could increase MRI suite usage again, reinforcing the company’s MRI leadership.

This dynamic mix reinforces ClearPoint’s dual-capability platform strategy, ensuring it remains well-positioned to support both current surgical demand and future biologic delivery innovations.

Essentially:

• OR compatibility via the 3.0 software represents a meaningful expansion of ClearPoint’s total addressable market, especially among hospitals with limited MRI availability.

• The company’s infrastructure strategy aligns with pharma timelines, ensuring readiness for broader adoption of gene and cell therapy delivery via MRI in the coming years.

• Supporting both MRI and OR workflows enhances customer retention and commercial flexibility — an important differentiator in the neurosurgical navigation space.Image
Read 12 tweets
May 20
Today, $NBIS released its Q1 2025 results.

As you know, this is the largest position in my portfolio, so it was definitely the one I was most looking forward to reviewing.

In this thread, I’ll break down everything you need to know about the Earnings Report: 🧵👇🏻 Image
1. Financial Highlights

Before diving into the numbers, let me first reiterate what I was looking for in this report:

“After receiving several questions about what I’m expecting, here’s my Earnings Preview.

Let’s start with what doesn’t matter:

I’m not concerned about whether NBIS beats or misses Q1 consensus estimates for revenue, EBITDA, or EPS. Why? To start, there are only three analysts covering the stock, so each estimate carries disproportionate weight. Second, and more importantly, the ARR ramp-up happened during Q1, meaning revenue recognition this quarter will largely depend on the timing of those contracts. As a result, these numbers may not reflect the true trajectory of the business.

What does matter to me:

1) March ARR guidance of “at least” $220M:

This figure was provided on the last earnings call, based on already signed contracts and with more potential deals in the pipeline.

I’d be very disappointed if NBIS doesn’t meet this number. It's their own guidance — not a Street estimate.

2) Year-end ARR guidance ($750M–$1B):

I’d like to see this guidance at least reaffirmed. Based on the company’s GPU fleet and current expansion plans, a raise is possible — but given that we’re only in May, I wouldn’t be surprised to see management remain cautious.

(This guidance was already raised in December, from the previous $500M–$1B range provided in October.)”

Now, here’s what the company delivered:

• Revenue: $55.3M vs. $57.7M est.
• Adj. EBITDA: $(62.6M) vs. $(94.4M) est.
• EPS: $(0.39) vs. $(0.45) est.

While Q1 revenue came in slightly below expectations, profitability metrics were materially better than anticipated. But again, that’s not what matters most.

• March ARR came in at $249M, exceeding the $220M+ guidance (+175% QoQ and +684% YoY, absolutely mindblowing)

• April ARR reached $310M, showing an impressive +25% MoM growth

• Year-end ARR guidance was reaffirmed at $750M–$1B

• FY2025 Revenue guidance of $500M–$700M

• Adj. EBITDA turning positive in H2 2025, with the core business expected to be breakeven as soon as Q3

• Mid-term Revenue guidance: “Mid-single-digit billions”

• Mid-term Adj. EBIT margin target of 20–30%, with a long-term goal of 30%+

“You know, the reality is that there are scenarios where we could grow more aggressively. Andre and his team are focused on building out the entire infrastructure pipeline, which could enable us to deliver more than 1 GW of capacity in the midterm. If we do that, we could exceed the midterm guidance we’ve provided. We’ll be opportunistic and pursue opportunities as they arise. I think the key drivers of incremental growth beyond our midterm guidance will be increased adoption by enterprise-level customers and larger, longer-term contracts.”

In other words, the already strong mid-term guidance could be conservative.

Importantly, the company is targeting 30%+ long-term EBIT margins while using a 4-year depreciation schedule on GPUs — which is more conservative than CoreWeave’s 6-year horizon. Even under these prudent accounting assumptions, $NBIS still expects to deliver exceptional margin performance at scale.

That’s because this isn’t just a neocloud or GPU lessor — Nebius offers software and platform services that sit on top of the infrastructure stack. This vertically integrated model is a key competitive differentiator, bringing in stickier customers and enabling AWS-like profitability at scale.

• Cash Position: $1.44B
• Debt: None — resulting in low interest burden

“We anticipate maintaining relatively low levels of debt, which means we’ll be able to reinvest a significant portion of our revenue to drive value creation in our core AI infrastructure business.”

• Capex for the remainder of 2025: $1.55B

The company remains disciplined and transparent about its capital structure. Management stated clearly that dilution will be avoided as much as possible (but is inevitable at some point), and they plan to leverage subsidiaries to raise non-dilutive funding.

One example:

“Should ClickHouse have a liquidity event in the near-to-mid term, this would provide us with significant capital to invest into our core business.”

$NBIS holds a 28% stake in ClickHouse, which is currently valued at $6B and might potentially IPO in the future, creating a potential cash windfall.

Another key asset is Avride, a fast-growing subsidiary that management believes is worth several billion dollars:

“We are actively exploring strategic investments and partnerships to help accelerate its growth.”

As Founder & CEO Arkady Volozh put it:

“There’s no other company in this sector that can raise potentially billions of dollars in this non-dilutive way.”

The opportunity is HUGE and $NBIS has the technology, talent and funding flexibility to successfully capture it.

If you want to understand the various competitive advantages $NBIS holds in more detail, you can read my full Deep Dive via the link in my bio.Image
2. Current Infrastructure and Expansion Plans

$NBIS made significant strides in scaling its AI infrastructure during Q1 2025. The company's GPU fleet currently consists mostly of NVIDIA H200s, complemented by H100s. Looking ahead, $NBIS plans to begin deploying the next generation of chips — including NVIDIA B200s in Q2 and both Grace Blackwells and Blackwell Ultras in the second half of the year. These upgrades are expected to substantially increase the company’s total compute capacity by the end of 2025.

At the same time, $NBIS has been rapidly growing its data center footprint across multiple regions. Over the past three quarters, the company has evolved from a single site in Finland to a globally distributed network with multiple strategic locations. Key milestones include:

• Iceland: A new colocation site launched in March 2025.
• Kansas City, U.S.: Came online in April 2025, now fully operational and soon to be running B200 GPUs.
• New Jersey, U.S.: Announced in March 2025, this custom-built facility is under active construction and follows Nebius’ proprietary efficiency-driven design standards.

The company continues to evaluate additional sites globally. As Arkady Volozh noted, $NBIS will begin development on a new site in Israel, with more locations likely to be announced soon:

“We are actively exploring new sites in the U.S. and around the world, and we expect to provide more news on this soon.”

$NBIS expects to reach at least 100 MW of contracted data center capacity by the end of 2025, a substantial increase from its prior guidance of 60–100 MW shared just seven months ago. This tells me that the $750M–$1B ARR guidance for the end of the year will be easily achieved — and has a strong chance of being surpassed.

Looking further ahead, management expects to significantly grow capacity in 2026.

The company's aggressive buildout is not just about scale, but about enabling a differentiated offering. As management explained:

“With our expanding capacity footprint and global sales support, we are now able to serve customers 24/7 with a truly tailored approach. Our high-level experts on both sides of the Atlantic, combined with our advanced software platform, go far beyond commoditized GPU-as-a-service offerings. Our customers recognize that we’re building an AI-specialized cloud with hyperscaler-level capabilities.”Image
Read 12 tweets
May 13
$NBIS is my largest position — and it’s finally starting to catch the attention of more investors.

I’ve been talking about it for months, so it's time to condense everything in a detailed thread.

Here’s why I believe $NBIS is one of the best opportunities in the market: 👇🏻🧵 Image
1. Origins: From Yandex to Nebius Group

The story of $NBIS begins inside one of the most iconic tech companies to emerge from Eastern Europe: Yandex. Often dubbed the “Google of Russia”, Yandex was a digital powerhouse, dominating search, maps, ride-hailing, e-commerce, and AI in Russia and surrounding markets. At its peak, it was a $30B company and one of the most successful tech stories in the region.

Then, everything changed.

In early 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off a geopolitical and moral reckoning for thousands of Yandex employees. Around 2,000 engineers, product leaders, and researchers — along with key members of Yandex’s founding team — made a bold decision: they would not be complicit. They chose to walk away from the Russian business, even if it meant leaving behind their homes, careers, and in some cases, their families.

This moral stand set in motion one of the most complex corporate restructurings in recent memory. Over the following two years, Yandex navigated sanctions, shareholder pressure, and mounting political scrutiny to ultimately divest all of its Russia-based assets. By mid-2024, a formal separation was completed.

And that’s how $NBIS was born.

Today, $NBIS is a completely independent company — composed of Nebius (AI cloud), Avride (autonomous driving), Toloka (data labeling), TripleTen (edtech), and a 28% stake in ClickHouse, the fast-growing open-source database platform. The group is legally and operationally severed from Yandex’s Russian operations. Its leadership and board have acquired Dutch or Israeli citizenship, ensuring full compliance with international sanctions and signaling a clean break from its origins.

While $NBIS inherits Yandex’s deep engineering DNA — particularly in AI infrastructure, distributed systems, and cloud computing — it is now pursuing a fundamentally different mission: to become a global leader in AI cloud services.

But with AI dominating headlines and investor attention, how is NBIS still flying under the radar?

The answer lies in its unconventional path to the public markets. Due to its roots within Yandex, $NBIS bypassed the traditional IPO process entirely. There was no roadshow, no investor marketing, and virtually no institutional coverage.

In fact, according to the company’s Founder and CEO, they were caught off guard by the listing. On a Friday, they received a call from Nasdaq informing them that Yandex’s legacy listing would transition to Nebius on Monday — just three days later. The team had to scramble to meet compliance requirements and prepare investor materials with almost no advance notice.

As a result, the stock debuted with minimal visibility. Analyst coverage is still limited, and a large portion of the float remains in the hands of retail investors.

This disconnect — between the quality of the business and its lack of market visibility — is precisely what makes $NBIS one of the most compelling and asymmetric opportunities in tech today.

As the company continues to execute on its ambitious expansion plans, it's likely only a matter of time before the broader market takes notice.Image
2. Core Business Explained

The AI revolution is accelerating, pushing the boundaries of what’s technologically possible — but also exposing the severe limitations of today’s compute infrastructure. As demand for AI capabilities explodes, the need for purpose-built, scalable, and efficient compute infrastructure has become one of the most urgent bottlenecks in the tech industry.

$NBIS exists to help solve that.

Positioned at the cutting edge of the global AI infrastructure market, $NBIS is building the backbone of tomorrow’s AI economy. Its mission is to deliver the infrastructure, tools, and services required to support AI innovation at scale. With ambitions to scale its operations to thousands of megawatts of GPU compute capacity, $NBIS is enabling startups, enterprises, and researchers alike to build, train, and deploy cutting-edge AI models — all on a single integrated platform.

At its core, $NBIS is a next-generation AI infrastructure company, often referred to as a “neocloud.” Unlike traditional cloud providers that retrofitted their platforms for AI, Nebius was purpose-built from the ground up for AI workloads. It combines deep expertise in hardware and software development with large-scale GPU deployments to deliver a full-stack solution designed specifically for the demands of modern AI development.

A Three-Layered Architecture: Infrastructure, Platform, and Applications

$NBIS operates across three primary layers — infrastructure, platform, and applications — creating an end-to-end ecosystem that addresses every step of the AI development lifecycle.

1. Comprehensive AI Infrastructure

Unlike many cloud providers that rely on off-the-shelf hardware and outsourced services, Nebius controls the entire value chain of its infrastructure. This full-stack control translates into both performance gains and economic efficiency:

• Custom Data Centers: Engineered for energy efficiency and high-density compute, Nebius’ data centers allow for better unit economics and scalability.

• In-House Server Design: Servers are custom-built to optimize GPU utilization and deployment speed — beyond the GPU itself — giving Nebius a competitive edge in cost and performance.

• End-to-End Stack: From hardware manufacturing to cloud orchestration, Nebius owns every layer, enabling tight integration, faster innovation cycles, and better cost controls.

• Managed Services: Tools like Apache Spark, MLflow, and others are seamlessly integrated, letting users focus on development rather than infrastructure management.

2. AI-Centric Cloud Platform

At the platform level, $NBIS has developed an AI-native cloud computing environment tailored to the needs of ML and DL practitioners. The platform integrates large-scale GPU clusters, scalable object storage, and managed tools into a cohesive offering:

• AI-Optimized Compute: Support for training, fine-tuning, and inference on some of the most advanced GPUs available, including NVIDIA H100s, H200s, and the upcoming Blackwells.

• Elastic Scalability: Whether it’s a single experiment or a massive training run, users can scale their compute resources up or down with ease.

• Low Latency & High Reliability: Proprietary cloud software and in-house hardware design ensure minimal downtime and consistent performance under load.

This cloud environment gives AI developers everything they need to build and deploy models in one place — with significantly less friction compared to general-purpose cloud services.

3. AI Studio: Inference-as-a-Service

On top of its platform and infrastructure stack, $NBIS offers AI Studio, a SaaS environment that simplifies access to powerful open-source AI models via APIs. Designed for both researchers and commercial users, the AI Studio enables fast, cost-efficient deployment of foundational models across a range of use cases:

• Plug-and-Play AI: Integration with popular models like ChatGPT, Gemini, LLama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, and others.

• Wide Model Coverage: From text generation and image synthesis to embedding models for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, AI Studio supports a broad spectrum of AI applications.

• Fast Model Onboarding: Nebius can integrate trending models within days or even hours — exemplified by its rapid deployment of DeepSeek models.

• User-Friendly Interface: Pre-configured environments drastically reduce setup time.

• Market-Leading Cost Efficiency: One of the lowest price-per-token (if not the lowest) offerings for inference currently available.

This platform is particularly well-suited for customers who don’t want to manage complex infrastructure but still want to experiment, prototype, or deploy AI applications at scale.

Today, $NBIS is one of the largest non-U.S. providers of AI infrastructure. The global market for GPUs is intensely competitive: while the majority of AI chips are used internally by model developers like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, only a fraction — around 10–20% — are made available to public cloud users via hyperscalers such as AWS or Oracle.

The remaining 30–40% of GPU supply is fragmented across dozens of alternative players — but only a handful, including CoreWeave, Lambda Labs, Together(.)ai, Deep Infra, and Nebius, possess the technical and financial capabilities to deploy large-scale infrastructure and serve global demand. Among these, Nebius stands out for its ability to serve a wide spectrum of clients, from startups and research labs to enterprise customers and AI product builders.

As its Founder & CEO, Arkady Volozh, puts it:

“We are one of the few alternatives capable of serving the core needs of major players, supplying GPUs to startups and corporate clients looking to purchase infrastructure, and supporting smaller clients who use models deployed by us. We are giving customers the freedom to choose.”Image
Read 20 tweets
May 6
Everyone’s talking about $HIMS now, but I’ve been covering it since it was trading in the low single digits.

I’ve analyzed every single quarterly report since late 2020.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of everything you need to know about yesterday’s Earnings Report: 👇🏻🧵 Image
1. Let's start with the Financial Highlights.

• Revenue: $586M (+111% YoY) vs. $538.9M est. 🟢

This marks the strongest revenue growth ever for $HIMS, driven largely by explosive demand for compounded GLP-1s. While the company expects a meaningful deceleration in this category as commercial semaglutide comes off shortage, revenue is still projected to grow >60% YoY in 2025.

• Revenue excluding GLP-1s: “Growth of nearly 30% YoY”

A sharp deceleration from previous quarters, likely contributing to the post-earnings stock selloff. However, the slowdown stems from a strategic reallocation of marketing spend toward weight loss products in anticipation of the semaglutide shortage ending. With the transition complete, $HIMS can now refocus on its broader portfolio — suggesting core revenue growth could accelerate from here.

“Rotation takes time to do efficiently, so we chose to reduce overall spend as opposed to recalibrate weight-related spend to other categories after the end of the semaglutide shortage in February.”

At the same time:

“We're seeing more subscribers come to our platform through organic and other lower-cost channels.”

• Subscribers: 2.366M (+38% YoY)

• Monthly Online Revenue per Avg Subscriber: $84 (+53% YoY)

A substantial increase, again, primarily driven by GLP-1 offerings. However, $HIMS guided that this number will moderate going forward as users transition from its compounded GLP-1s.

• Q2 Revenue Guidance: $540M vs. $567M est. 🔴

Another factor contributing to the selloff is that this marks the first time $HIMS has missed guidance and projected a sequential decline in revenue. This is clearly tied to the resolution of the semaglutide shortage, and it was unrealistic to expect the company to sustain triple-digit growth without the outsized contribution from compounded GLP-1s. As such, I wouldn’t draw overly negative conclusions from this guidance miss.

• Gross Margin: 73% vs. 77% est. 🔴 (down from 82% YoY)

While certain efficiencies continued to improve — particularly through economies of scale driven by increased volume at affiliated pharmacies and lower medical consultation costs as a percentage of revenue — gross margins declined due to a higher mix of revenue from compounded GLP-1s. With the semaglutide shortage now resolved, this trend is expected to reverse, and the CFO stated during the earnings call that gross margins should improve in Q2.

• Adj. EBITDA: $91.1M vs. $61.8M est. (+182% YoY) 🟢

• GAAP EPS: $0.20 vs. $0.12 est. 🟢

• Operating Cash Flow: $109M (+322% YoY)

• Free Cash Flow: $50.1M (+321% YoY)

• Reiterates FY2025 Revenue guidance of $2.3-2.4B vs. $2.323B est. (+56-63%) 🟢

• Raises FY2025 Adj. EBITDA guidance to $295-335M vs. $296.6M est. (+67-90%) 🟢
2. Every GAAP operating expense category continued to decline as a percentage of revenue, highlighting the strong efficiency of $HIMS' business model and its impressive ability to unlock operating leverage at scale.

On marketing efficiency, management noted:

“We benefited from efficiencies related to new product launches and improving organic customer acquisition trends, which more than offset higher spend driven in part by our first Super Bowl commercial.”

While some quarter-to-quarter volatility is expected, the company remains confident in its ability to drive 1 to 3 percentage points of marketing leverage per year.

As a result, $HIMS managed to double its net profit margin while simultaneously doubling its revenue YoY, leading to a fourfold increase in GAAP EPS over the past twelve months — an exceptional performance by any standard.

The same momentum is evident in its cash flow generation. While FCF wasn’t as high as in prior quarters, it still grew by 321% YoY, and operating cash flow reached a new all-time high. The only reason FCF didn’t follow suit was due to a deliberate increase in Capex aimed at strengthening infrastructure. These investments are strategically aligned with the company’s long-term vision and will reinforce $HIMS' competitive advantages and leadership in the sector.

Given the company’s strong balance sheet and highly efficient business model, allocating capital toward long-term infrastructure — even at the expense of short-term margins — appears to be a prudent and value-accretive decision.

Examples of recent Capex investments designed to enhance infrastructure and support the company’s long-term goal of serving tens of millions of subscribers:

• Expanded internal fulfillment footprint from 400K to nearly 700K sq. ft. in Arizona

• Upgraded automation equipment to enable personalized and scalable precision medicine

• Built out sterile fulfillment capacity to support new categories like low testosterone therapy and menopause support

• Investing in diagnostic lab capabilities to enhance personalization and lower consumer friction

In summary, these infrastructure investments reflect $HIMS' clear intention to build a durable, defensible platform capable of scaling efficiently over the long term. Rather than optimizing for short-term gains, the company is positioning itself to capitalize on massive future demand across multiple high-growth categories — a strategic approach that underscores both management’s discipline and the strength of the underlying business model.Image
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