Shares of electric aviation startup Beta Technologies took flight Tuesday as the company made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange with an outsized raise of $1 billion and a stock price that closed up.
The Vermont-based company priced shares in its IPO at $34, above its predicted range of $27 to $33. Beta Technologies sold 29.9 million shares to raise more $1 billion at a valuation of $7.4 billion.
Once trading started, shares of Beta Technologies dipped before recovering and ultimately closing at $36.
Beta Technologies’ public market debut is a capstone to founder and CEO Kyle Clark’s untraditional approach to building an aviation company. Clark, a Harvard-educated former professional hockey player and pilot instructor, founded Beta Technologies in 2017. He didn’t take the typical path of a startup founder, eschewing Silicon Valley for his Vermont hometown and bypassing venture capital. Instead, Beta has raised funds — to the tune of $1.15 billion — from institutional investors like Fidelity and Qatar Investment Authority. Amazon and General Electric are among Beta’s biggest investors.
In another uncommon move, the company filed its IPO paperwork despite the government shutdown. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidance last month that lets companies in IPO limbo issue statements, including share price, that become automatically effective after 20 days, even without SEC staff review. Several other companies, including Navan, have pressed ahead with IPO plans under this rule.
The decision to proceed under this SEC guidance would mean a 20-day roadshow with investors, Clark told TechCrunch, adding that banks advisers told him being on the road that long was risky.
“And I said, ‘You know what? It actually is not. I think the more time we spend with investors, the better this is going to be for Beta,’” Clark said in an interview Monday evening. “As people started to dig really deep into the tech and the strategy, we got stronger and stronger, and our oversubscription speaks for itself.”
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His hope, he told TechCrunch, is for steady and slow growth of the stock, not a wild, uncontrolled pop.
Now, Clark says he is focused back on the company, including the commercial certification of its electric aircraft with the Federal Aviation Administration.
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