The startup that rents out access to Nvidia chips priced its initial public offering below expectations and ended its first day of trading flat on Friday, a sign of flagging investor enthusiasm for artificial-intelligence companies as well as the chilly state of the U.

The AI start-up priced its stock at $40, well below recent expectations for $47 to $55 a share. The listing has been seen as a test for both AI and the market for new stock.

Shares in CoreWeave, a cloud computing company backed by Nvidia, wavered in their market debut Friday, following a $1.5 billion initial public offering that priced below its expected range.

CoreWeave is the Tinker Bell of the artificial intelligence trade. Like the fairy from "Peter Pan", it is capable of soaring flight, growing revenue eightfold last year to $1.9 billion. Yet as the story goes,

The cloud computing provider raised $1.5bn when it floated its shares on Thursday evening, according to people familiar with the matter. CoreWeave had initially targeted raising $4bn and dropped that figure to $2.

Concerns sparked by CoreWeave's debt pile and other financial challenges may weigh on retail investor enthusiasm as it prepares to go public after what analysts said was a poorly timed IPO.

Shares of CoreWeave closed Friday at $40, the same level where the AI statrup priced its offering late Thursday. The offering price came in well below the $47 to $55 range the company had been targeting.

CoreWeave reduced the size of its U.S. initial public offering and priced its shares below the indicated range, the company said on Thursday, dampening expectations that the listing would boost investor appetite for IPOs.