Wire · Echonomia Post
Nebius ( NBIS +0.62% ) underwent a remarkable transformation over the past four years. The Netherlands-based company was previously known as Yandex, which owned Russia's top search engine and other associated apps. However, the sanctions imposed on Russia in 2022 forced it to divest all its Russian assets.
Its NASDAQ-listed YNDX shares were also halted. After selling Yandex's eponymous search engine and Russian apps to a consortium of Russian investors, it rebranded itself as Nebius and became a cloud-based AI infrastructure company. Its stock resumed trading on Oct. 21, 2024, under its new NBIS ticker symbol.
Image source: Getty Images. Nebius' stock opened at $14.29 per share on the first day, and closed at a record high of $286.69 on June 18, 2026. That rally would have turned a $1,000 investment into more than $20,000 in less than two years.
Today, its stock trades at about $220. Let's see why Nebius' stock skyrocketed -- and what it might turn a fresh $1,000 investment into by 2030. What does Nebius do?
Nebius is a " neocloud " company that deploys thousands of GPUs across its data centers to remotely process AI tasks. It currently operates four data centers in Finland, Iceland, and the United States, but it plans to open 14 more data centers in the near future. As the AI market expands, AI companies and hyperscalers are running out of compute power to support their latest generative AI applications.
That's why they're turning to neocloud companies, like Nebius and its larger rival CoreWeave ( CRWV +0.61% ) , to meet that demand. Today's Change ( 0.62 %) $ 1.36 Current Price $ 221.07 Why did Nebius' stock deliver multibagger gains? In 2025, Nebius' revenue surged 351% to $530 million.
In the first half of 2026, its revenue soared another 529% year over year to $981 million. Its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) also improved from negative $75 million to positive $366 million, giving it an adjusted EBITDA margin of 37%. By the end of the second quarter of 2026, its contracted backlog had more than quadrupled year over year to $40 billion.
Nebius expects its annualized revenue run rate to reach $7 billion to $9 billion by the end of 2026. Analysts expect its full-year revenue to surge 530% to $3.3 billion, then jump 268% to $12.3 billion in 2027 and 87% to $23 billion in 2028. They expect its adjusted EBITDA to turn positive in 2026, then rise 378% to $6.6 billion in 2027 and 106% to $13.6 billion in 2028.
Why does Nebius' stock still seem undervalued? With an enterprise value of $74 billion, Nebius' stock still looks surprisingly cheap at 8 times next year's sales and 14 times its adjusted EBITDA. That's probably because some investors are still concerned about its lack of profitability under generally accepted accounting principles ( GAAP ) -- which includes all interest and depreciation costs excluded from its adjusted EBITDA -- as well as its rising debt and dilution (its share count has risen 15% since its market return).
At the end of the second quarter of 2026, Nebius had a manageable debt-to-equity ratio of 1.7. But that leverage will likely rise as it continues to open new data centers, and rising interest rates will make it even more expensive to issue new debt. To convert its massive backlog into revenue, Nebius plans to expand its data center capacity from 170 MW at the end of 2025 to between 800 MW and 1 GW by the end of 2026.
Unlike CoreWeave, which leases most of its data centers, Nebius prefers to buy them outright. That's a smart long-term strategy, but it will rack up higher near-term expenses. If Nebius matches analysts' estimates through 2028, grows its adjusted EBITDA at a 30% CAGR over the following three years, and trades at 25x its forward adjusted EBITDA by the fourth quarter of 2030, its stock could rise roughly ninefold by the end of that year.
Turning $1,000 into more than $9,000 would be an impressive four-year gain, but its stock could endure some wild swings before that happens. Investors should keep a close eye on its capital-intensive expansion and see if it's sustainable in this messy macro environment.
Source: The Motley Fool
