Can Nebius' Noncore Stakes Support Long-Term AI Expansion?

Nebius Group N.V. NBIS is pursuing an aggressive expansion strategy to meet the growing demand for AI infrastructure and management believes its non-core investments could play a vital role in supporting future capital needs.

On the last earnings call, management noted that it is exploring various funding sources, including adding corporate debt and asset-backed financing, to sustain long-term expansion. It considers valuable equity stakes in companies such as ClickHouse and Avride to provide strategic financial flexibility over time. These investments are currently categorized as non-core assets, but represent significant long-term value.

ClickHouse stake is a standout. Nebius owns a 25% stake in ClickHouse and owns 100% of Avride value. On the last earnings call, management noted that ClickHouse's valuation stood at nearly $15 billion in the most recent funding round. The company expects that the value of its non-core stakes will increase further over the mid-term. While these assets may not currently be central to Nebius’ AI expansion plans, they could eventually serve as an important funding source as it continues to scale operations.

Nebius is currently investing heavily to expand its AI cloud platform, including plans to spend between $16 billion and $20 billion in capital expenditures in 2026. Capex is strategic as it will enable Nebius to secure critical power, land, sites and hardware to support an accelerated build-out of data centers and GPU deployment going ahead and capture business opportunities.

Having secured more than 2 gigawatts (“GW”) of contracted power, Nebius plans to surpass 3 GW and remains on track to deliver 800 megawatts to 1 GW of data center capacity by the end of 2026.

Let’s Look at Financial Resources for Competitors

CoreWeave CRWV is offering Nebius some serious competition in the AI infrastructure space. Unlike NBIS, CRWV does not have equity stakes in large external companies, but through CoreWeave Ventures, it invests in upcoming AI firms.

As of Dec. 31, 2025, CRWV had $4.2 billion in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities. However, CoreWeave has been funding an expansion strategy through hefty leverage. On the last earnings call, CRWV noted that it raised a staggering $18 billion in debt and equity in 2025 alone. CoreWeave expects capex at $30-$35 billion for 2026. Hefty leverage leads to ballooning interest expenses, which can undermine profitability.

Microsoft MSFT leverages its corporate venture capital fund, M12, founded in 2016, to invest in early-stage technology companies transforming the enterprise sector. Notably, the investment in OpenAI stands out as its crown jewel, playing an important role in accelerating Microsoft’s AI ambitions. The company’s partnership with OpenAI has cemented Azure as a premier platform for AI workloads, complemented by AI integration across Office, GitHub and Dynamics. Investment in Anthropic is also noteworthy.

Looking at financial resources, MSFT had a cash pile of $89.5 billion as of Dec. 31, 2025, while long-term debt (including current portion) was $40.3 billion. Capex stood at $37.5 billion in the fiscal second quarter.

NBIS Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of Nebius have gained 14.3% in the past month compared with the Internet – Software and Services industry’s growth of 2.1%.

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In terms of price/book, NBIS’ shares are trading at 6.11X, higher than the Internet Software Services industry’s ratio of 2.89X.

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NBIS’ earnings for 2026 has been revised downwards over the past 60 days.

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NBIS currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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