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The startup Fervo Energy just raised another $462 million to build America’s next generation of geothermal power plants.
On Wednesday, the Houston-based company said it closed a Series E funding round led by a new investor, B Capital, a global venture capital firm started by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin. With the latest announcement, Fervo says it’s raised about $1.5 billion overall since 2017 as it develops what could become the world’s largest ​“enhanced geothermal system” in Utah.
“Fervo is setting the pace for the next era of clean, affordable, and reliable power in the U.S.,” Jeff Johnson, general partner at B Capital, said in a news release.
The Series E funding comes as Fervo reportedly prepares to become a publicly traded company, which would let it raise even more capital for its ambitious projects. When asked about a potential IPO, Fervo said only that the company is ​“focused on executing our development plan” in an email to Canary Media. ​“We have a lot of capital needs going forward to fuel our planned growth and will be tapping a lot of different opportunities to make that happen.”
Fervo is part of a burgeoning movement in the U.S. and globally to unleash geothermal energy in many more places.
The carbon-free energy from deep underground is available around the clock, but it represents only about 0.4% of total U.S. electricity generation — largely because the existing technology is constrained by geography. Today’s geothermal plants rely on naturally occurring reservoirs of hot water and steam to spin their turbines and generate power, which are available in a limited number of places.
Fervo’s approach involves creating its own reservoirs by fracturing hot rocks and pumping them full of water. The company uses the same horizontal drilling techniques and fiber-optic sensing tools as the oil and gas industry in an effort to reach deeper wells and hotter sources than is possible with conventional geothermal technology.
Its flagship development, Cape Station, is well underway in Beaver County, Utah. The project’s initial 100-megawatt installation is on track to start delivering power to the grid in October 2026, which will make it the first commercial-scale enhanced geothermal project to hit such a milestone worldwide, according to Fervo. An additional 400 MW is slated to come online in 2028.
“It’s very exciting to see at this point in time, because of the tangible progress that has been made,” Sarah Jewett, Fervo’s senior vice president of strategy, told Canary Media. ​“It’s really looking like a power project out there” in Utah, she added, noting that an electrical substation and three power facilities now sit alongside the drilling equipment and well pads. About 350 people currently work at the site.
Fervo has already completed a pilot project in Humboldt County, Nevada. The 3.5-MW facility went online in November 2023 and supplies power directly to the Las Vegas-based utility NV Energy. Google, which backed the project, also joined the Series E as one of Fervo’s new investors.
The financing announced this week will enable the startup to continue building Cape Station and to start development on other project sites where Fervo is conducting rock and soil analyses, Jewett said. One of the new projects will be in Nevada, where Fervo is working with NV Energy and Google to develop 115 MW of geothermal energy that will power the tech giant’s data centers. But the startup isn’t ready to disclose more details on the other locations.
Jewett said the fact that Fervo’s Series E was oversubscribed — meaning the firm raised more funding than it initially sought — is a reflection of the robust U.S. market for clean energy that’s available 24/7, not only for powering data centers but also for new domestic factories and electrified vehicles and buildings.
“There is just massive demand for the type of electricity that we’re providing,” she said.
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