Fervo Energy crosses $10 billion after blockbuster IPO fueled by AI power demand

Published: 13 May 2026

The geothermal startup raised $1.89 billion, priced above expectations, then popped another 33% on its first day of trading. Data centers running 24/7 need power that does the same.

Fervo Energy went public on Wednesday and the market didn’t hold back. The Houston geothermal startup priced its IPO at $27 per share, raised $1.89 billion after upsizing the offering several times, and then watched its stock jump another 33% when trading opened, pushing its valuation past $10 billion.

Demand for the offering was strong enough that Fervo and its bankers kept increasing the size, adding 14.6 million additional shares and raising the price range twice before settling on a final number. The stock trades on the Nasdaq under FRVO.

“We were asked a few times on the roadshow, ‘Why aren’t you raising more money?'”Sarah Jewett, SVP of Strategy, Fervo Energy

The answer, eventually, was: more. Fervo ended up netting $500 million above its original target. That cushion matters. The company is still building Cape Station, its flagship geothermal plant in Utah, which is slated to begin operating this year. When Cape Station’s first phase is complete, around 3 years out, the plan is to generate 500 megawatts of electricity.

But there’s more ground to work with. Third-party engineers estimate enough heat on site for up to 4 gigawatts of capacity. The current grid interconnection limits what Fervo can push to the network, but the company has applied to expand it. And even before that happens, companies are already asking to connect directly, bypassing the grid entirely.

What’s driving all this interest is straightforward: AI data centers need electricity that never stops. Solar goes dark. Wind goes still. Geothermal doesn’t. That baseload reliability, generating power around the clock regardless of weather, has made Fervo a favorite among tech companies shopping for energy. Google has already signed on to buy 115 megawatts from Fervo’s Corsac Station project in Nevada.

Key numbers

IPO price per share $27
Shares added in upsizing 14.6 million
Cape Station capacity (phase 1)500 MW
Estimated site potential 4 GW
Google’s Nevada contract: 115 MW
Cost reduction after 14 wells–67%

Fervo uses a drilling technique borrowed from oil and gas: directional drilling, the same method that unlocked the shale boom. The company applies it to enhanced geothermal, which goes deeper than traditional geothermal to tap hotter rock formations. Its first wells took dozens of days and cost over $1,000 per foot. After 14 wells, Fervo has cut both drilling time and cost per foot by two-thirds.

The IPO wasn’t a surprise to anyone following the sector. Fervo closed a $462 million funding round in December, and investors who spoke with TechCrunch at the time almost unanimously expected a public offering soon. The company had made it through what insiders call the “valley of death,” the hard stretch between proving a technology works and proving it can scale. Cape Station’s data made that case. The market agreed.

Fervo is the second energy stock in recent weeks to price above expectations. Nuclear startup X-energy raised $1 billion in its own upsized IPO, another sign that investors are willing to bet on power sources that can keep data centers running when the grid can’t keep up.