Electric aviation startup Beta Technologies has set a share price for its initial public offering between twenty-seven and thirty-three dollars. The company hopes to raise as much as eight hundred and twenty-five million dollars, according to a regulatory document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. If the company attracts investors at the top of that price range, it will debut with a valuation of approximately seven point two billion dollars.
The Vermont-based company was founded in 2017 by its CEO Kyle Clark. The company filed its paperwork on Wednesday despite the ongoing government shutdown. The SEC issued guidance that allows companies in the IPO process to have their statements on certain areas become automatically effective after twenty days, even without a formal SEC staff review. Several other companies have moved forward with their IPO plans under this same rule.
Kyle Clark is a Harvard-educated former professional hockey player and pilot instructor who has not followed the typical path of a startup founder. He chose to base the company in his Vermont hometown instead of Silicon Valley and pursued a different strategy for raising funds. Beta Technologies has never taken venture capital, instead raising one point one five billion dollars from institutional investors such as Fidelity and the Qatar Investment Authority.
Last month, Beta Technologies announced a strategic deal with GE Aerospace to build a hybrid-electric turbogenerator for next-generation aircraft. As part of this agreement, GE Aerospace will take a stake in the company and invest three hundred million dollars.