Bloom Energy, Once Valued at $2.9 Billion, Quietly Files IPO Plans
October 06 2016 - 3:10PM
Dow Jones News
Bloom Energy Inc., a once-ballyhooed alternative energy startup
that has raised $1.2 billion, is in confidential registration with
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an IPO, according
to people familiar with the matter.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Bloom Energy has filed to go public
under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which allows
companies with less than $1 billion in revenue to register
privately with the SEC.
A Bloom Energy representative declined to comment.
Bloom Energy has some of the biggest venture capitalists in
Silicon Valley as backers and former Secretary of State Colin
Powell on its board.
Legendary Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John
Doer, an early Google and Amazon.com backer and vocal promoter of
Bloom Energy, was among the energy upstart's first investors in
2002. The stake from Kleiner Perkins was its first leap into clean
energy, leading to a boom in alternative energy investments, many
of which have fizzled.
The maker of fuel-cell power generators for businesses wooed
investors with its promise to revolutionize the energy industry.
Outlasting an alternative energy shakeout, Bloom Energy was valued
at $2.9 billion in a 2011 investment. Scott Sandell, managing
general partner at New Enterprise Associates and a board member at
Boom Energy, had said in 2012 that Bloom Energy would attempt an
IPO by 2014.
Bloom Energy's 2011 valuation is much higher than the market
caps today of all the major publicly traded fuel-cell companies
combined. GSV Capital sold its shares in Bloom Energy in the first
quarter of 2016 at a loss, it said in financial filings.
Fuel-cell power generation has been an illusive target for
decades, with a succession of companies unable to realize its
business potential. Bloom Energy promised breakthroughs in
materials and costs, but like many it faced challenges in high
capital requirements.
Bloom Energy makes power generators that take in natural gas and
convert it to electricity. Customers, including eBay, Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. and FedEx, have put Bloom Energy's generators at their
offices in hopes of reduced energy costs.
Like those in the solar industry, Bloom Energy has been buoyed
by federal tax credits and state subsidies. Yet those federal tax
benefits, called Business Energy Investment Tax Credits, are
scheduled to expire by year's end for fuel cells, small wind and
hybrid solar lighting technologies. That would remove a 30% tax
break to buyers of the Bloom fuel-cell energy systems, posing a
financial risk ahead of its IPO.
Investors in Bloom Energy include New Enterprise Associates,
Apex Venture Partners, TriplePoint Capital, Madrone Capital, Credit
Suisse Group, DAG Ventures, E.ON Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs
Ventures, Morgan Stanley and several pension funds, such as the
Alberta Investment Management Corp. and the New Zealand
Superannuation Fund as well as individuals.
.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 06, 2016 14:55 ET (18:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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