Melvin Argues Nebius Holds Valuable ClickHouse Stake Worth Billions
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Melvin argues Nebius could become a trillion-dollar company, citing its 28% stake in ClickHouse, which he values at about $4.2 billion at a $15 billion valuation. He also quotes Altimeter's Brad Gerstner on data infrastructure benefiting from AI token consumption.
Original post · 3 min read
Nebius will be a TRILLION dollar company and here is exactly why (Save this).
Brad Gerstner's Altimeter said on camera that they are invested in ClickHouse, and explained exactly why in one sentence: "If you're in the data infrastructure layer, then token consumption is driving a lot more consumption of your basic services."
The flip side of that point is equally important.
Gerstner added that the closer you are to a point solution, a single use app built on top of AI, "that feels like you're on the front of the conveyor belt heading toward the guillotine."
Models get better, apps get commoditized and the companies that own the foundational infrastructure that every AI application must run through keep compounding.
ClickHouse is exactly that foundational layer.
It is a real time analytical database engine originally built inside Yandex, optimized for the exact query patterns that AI agents, LLM observability pipelines, and machine learning infrastructure generate, massive write volumes, complex aggregations, and sub-second response at scale.
It processes hundreds of billions of rows per second, serves over 2,000 enterprise customers including Cloudflare, Uber and ByteDance, and grew 300% in a single year.
In January 2026, a $400 million Series D valued ClickHouse at $15 billion more than double its $6 billion valuation just eight months prior.
Here is where Nebius comes in.
Nebius holds a 28% stake in ClickHouse, an asset that traces back to its Yandex origins.
At ClickHouse's current $15 billion valuation, that stake is worth approximately $4.2 billion, sitting largely unrecognized on Nebius's balance sheet while most market coverage focuses entirely on the AI cloud business.
A ClickHouse IPO, which the company is actively positioning toward, would force the market to mark that position to full public market value for the first time and could alone reprice Nebius meaningfully.
But that hidden asset is just one layer of the bull case.
The core AI cloud business just printed 684% year over year revenue growth, $399 million in Q1 2026 against $50 million a year prior.
AI specific revenue grew 841% and now represents 98% of total revenue.
The moat underneath those numbers is 3.5 gigawatts of secured power capacity, a $27 billion five year contract with Meta, a $2 billion strategic investment from Nvidia, and a Microsoft partnership ramping to full run rate in 2027, all stacked on top of a ClickHouse stake that the market is still not fully pricing in.
Long Nebius and make sure to follow me @MelvinInvests for more underlooked AI oppurtunities.
Brad Gerstner's Altimeter said on camera that they are invested in ClickHouse, and explained exactly why in one sentence: "If you're in the data infrastructure layer, then token consumption is driving a lot more consumption of your basic services."
The flip side of that point is equally important.
Gerstner added that the closer you are to a point solution, a single use app built on top of AI, "that feels like you're on the front of the conveyor belt heading toward the guillotine."
Models get better, apps get commoditized and the companies that own the foundational infrastructure that every AI application must run through keep compounding.
ClickHouse is exactly that foundational layer.
It is a real time analytical database engine originally built inside Yandex, optimized for the exact query patterns that AI agents, LLM observability pipelines, and machine learning infrastructure generate, massive write volumes, complex aggregations, and sub-second response at scale.
It processes hundreds of billions of rows per second, serves over 2,000 enterprise customers including Cloudflare, Uber and ByteDance, and grew 300% in a single year.
In January 2026, a $400 million Series D valued ClickHouse at $15 billion more than double its $6 billion valuation just eight months prior.
Here is where Nebius comes in.
Nebius holds a 28% stake in ClickHouse, an asset that traces back to its Yandex origins.
At ClickHouse's current $15 billion valuation, that stake is worth approximately $4.2 billion, sitting largely unrecognized on Nebius's balance sheet while most market coverage focuses entirely on the AI cloud business.
A ClickHouse IPO, which the company is actively positioning toward, would force the market to mark that position to full public market value for the first time and could alone reprice Nebius meaningfully.
But that hidden asset is just one layer of the bull case.
The core AI cloud business just printed 684% year over year revenue growth, $399 million in Q1 2026 against $50 million a year prior.
AI specific revenue grew 841% and now represents 98% of total revenue.
The moat underneath those numbers is 3.5 gigawatts of secured power capacity, a $27 billion five year contract with Meta, a $2 billion strategic investment from Nvidia, and a Microsoft partnership ramping to full run rate in 2027, all stacked on top of a ClickHouse stake that the market is still not fully pricing in.
Long Nebius and make sure to follow me @MelvinInvests for more underlooked AI oppurtunities.
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