Research report
The theme is going up. Which name, at what risk?
The Neocloud Report · Edition 1, figures as of the Q1 2026 prints, refreshed 8 September 2026
Five US-listed GPU-cloud names, one business model, and a valuation spread from about 7x sales to about 860x. The report ranks CoreWeave, Nebius, IREN, Applied Digital and SharonAI by risk-adjusted value: what you pay against what is actually de-risked, across valuation, leverage and customer concentration.
Same chips, opposite bets
Everyone buys the same NVIDIA silicon, so the names do not differ on the product. CoreWeave trades around 7x sales; SharonAI around 860x. One owns its data centers outright; one has not recognized revenue yet. Ranked by what you pay versus what is de-risked, they do not cluster, they spread across the whole curve. The report is the case for buying the curve rather than the theme.
The risk they all share
Customer concentration is the bear case in one sentence: a handful of AI labs fund the entire buildout. CoreWeave near 55%, Nebius near 80%, IREN near 55% on 2026 revenue. That means concentration is not the differentiator, it is the correlation: a capex wobble at Meta, Microsoft or OpenAI re-rates all five at once, so a five-name neocloud basket is, on the axis that matters most, one bet.
The part a chart cannot give you
The most useful idea in the report is a shape, not a name: size a proven base as a core and the pre-revenue tail as a tail, small enough that a total loss is a rounding error and a 10x still contributes. And because the systematic risk is common, a second proven name is closer to 1.5 bets than 2. None of it is a recommendation, it is the arithmetic of sizing a convex, correlated cluster.
What is inside
- The three-axis method (valuation, leverage, customer concentration), scored high / medium / low per name so you can see which axis carries the risk.
- A scorecard for each of the five names with the dated numbers and a one-line bull and bear: CRWV, IREN, NBIS, APLD, SHAZ.
- The comparison table: price-to-sales, leverage, concentration, and where each name's risk actually lives.
- The access decision: picking names inside the bloc versus buying the Roundhill Neocloud ETF (NCLD), and why the cap-weighted wrapper inherits the tail whether you wanted it or not.
- Position construction: how a proven base and a convex tail are sized in a cluster whose systematic risk is common.
- Four forward triggers, ordered by how much they move the whole bloc, from hyperscaler capex guidance to SharonAI's first recognized revenue.
Buy it if
- You already hold or are weighing a neocloud and want the cross-sectional call (which name, at what risk), not the theme call.
- You size by risk and want each name's risk located on a specific axis rather than averaged into one number.
- You are deciding between picking a name and buying the NCLD wrapper, and want the trade-off spelled out.
Skip it if
- You want a buy or sell call. There are none here, by design and by law.
- You want a price target or a timing view. The report trades the cross-section, not the direction.
- You want figures that never move. These are dated to the Q1 2026 prints; in a group funded by continuous raises they change fast, and the report says so on its first page.
How delivery works
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An educational research publication, not investment advice, trade signals, a managed account, or an advisory service. Nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. See our disclosures.