Amazon-backed electric aircraft company, Beta Technologies, closed up 6% at US$36 per share in its NYSE debut.
The company priced shares in its IPO at $34, surpassing expectations of $27 to $33.
In its stock market debut, the company managed to sell 29.9 million shares, raising more than $1 billion at a valuation of $7.4 billion.
Beta Technologies' public debut is an achievement for founder and CEO, Kyle Clark and was an untraditional approach to building an aviation company.
“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.”
The company is still relatively small, posting a net loss of $183.2 million in the first half of this year, compared to $37.1 million in the first half of last year. Despite this, revenue still doubled from US$7.6 million in 2017, when the company was founded, to US$15.6 million.
Beta Technologies still decided to go public in the midst of a government shutdown that started at the beginning of October, while the Securities and Exchange Commission is operating with limited staff.
Clark said the company decided to “keep the train on the rails” and proceed during the shutdown despite the shutdown.
Amazon and General Electric were two of the company’s main investors, with 10.2% and 6.3% stakes respectively, before the IPO.
Following the Beta going public, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) competitors Joby and Archer fell 9% and 6% respectively.
