Speculation over a Fervo Energy IPO may soon be at an end: The geothermal company has quietly filed the confidential SEC paperwork proceeding a public offering, according to reporting from Axios.
It’s a watershed moment for the company, which has raised more than $1.4 billion and in recent years has evolved into the first utility-scale enhanced geothermal developer. But it isn’t unexpected. CEO Tim Latimer confirmed to reporters throughout 2025 that the company was actively exploring a public offering, and in December the company closed a massive Series E funding round that came in at just under half a billion dollars. In the venture world, such a raise is frequently a bridge to public markets.
The timing of the potential IPO is significant. Typical registration timelines suggest Fervo could officially debut on the stock market this summer, just before the company’s first utility-scale plant, Cape Station, expected to start delivering power this fall. The fully contracted, 500 megawatt project will be the largest enhanced geothermal plant in the world, and has catapulted Fervo from tech startup to major energy developer.
Compared to many of its next-gen geothermal peers, Fervo’s approach is incredibly capital-intensive, as it works to build massive, multi-well power plants from scratch. Companies like Sage Geosystems, which raised a Series B earlier this week, takes a more capital light approach by repurposing abandoned oil and gas infrastructure.
To meet its high cash needs, Fervo has leveraged a unique financing mix of venture capital, institutional investments, and strategic financing from the oil and gas industry — including from Liberty Energy, when it was helmed by now-Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who has become a significant supporter of the sector within the Trump administration.
Trump 2.0 has seen emergency orders fast tracking permitting, a budget bill that took a hacksaw to most clean energy credits but largely spared geothermal, and a new geothermal-focused office within the Department of Energy. As Latimer told Latitude Media in an interview last year, all of those moves gave the industry a “very clear signal.”
But Fervo’s work as an infrastructure developer has been underway since long before Trump re-entered office. It found an early anchor in Google in 2021, working with the tech giant to develop a 3.5 MW pilot project to support Google’s data centers in Nevada.
The pair then teamed up with a Nevada utility to develop the “clean transition tariff,” a new rate structure allowing large customers like Google to pay a premium for power from emerging technologies, without passing the cost of commercializing them off to ratepayers. As part of that partnership, Google can fund Fervo’s project directly, and eventually access credits against the value of the resulting power. The tariff won approval mid last year.
Fervo didn’t immediately respond to Latitude Media’s request for comment.
