Bridging the FOAK finance gap: IPO before VC
- Emin Askerov
- Jun 2
- 1 min read
They IPO’d before raising VC. Here’s why that was genius.
ATOME Energy didn’t follow the usual startup playbook.
No pre-seed.
No seed.
No “100-slide deck for Sand Hill Road.”
Instead, they went public. Early.
That’s not just bold - it’s strategic.
💡 Why?
Because in capital-intensive, FOAK-scale cleantech, your biggest bottleneck isn’t idea validation.
It’s credibility.
To secure $400M in project finance, off-take agreements, and long-term power deals in emerging markets…
You need more than a good pitch.
You need auditable processes, financial discipline, and regulatory transparency now, not after Series C.
An early IPO made ATOME investable to sovereigns, banks, and utilities.
It signaled: “We’re not another hydrogen hype deck. We’re building a real business.”
🚫 No gigawatt dreams.
✅ A focused niche (fertilizer).
✅ A capex-heavy but mature tech stack.
✅ A team with finance, policy, and chemical engineering chops (more on that in a separate post - stay tuned!)
✅ A solid business plan with clear margins.
✅ Secured ultra-cheap, already existing energy supply.
It’s not a path for everyone, but for FOAK players solving boring but crucial climate problems, it’s an example of a creative solution to crossing the “Valley of Death”.
📽 Full interview with CEO Olivier Mussat here
💬 Have you seen other early IPO strategies in cleantech? Drop them below. Let’s deconstruct what worked.
