Nuclear startup Deep Fission says it's going public, again, and I have questions | TechCrunch

Deep Fission announced plans to go public on Nasdaq to raise investor support for subterranean reactors intended to power AI data centers. A prior attempt to become public occurred through a reverse merger with Surfside Acquisition, a Delaware shell company, which raised $30 million via a concurrent private placement. That transaction made Deep Fission a reporting company with SEC obligations, but its stock never traded. The company had indicated an intention to list on OTCQB, yet no OTCQB results appear, and its S-1 stated its stock had never been publicly traded. Deep Fission declined to comment due to the IPO quiet period. The Nasdaq offering seeks $157 million and could value the company up to $1.66 billion, despite earlier fundraising struggles and delays in reactor milestones.

"Deep Fission announced that it was going public, hoping to garner investor support to build subterranean reactors to power AI data centers. Wait, didn't I already write that story? I could have sworn that I did. Oh right, I did. Last September, Deep Fission said that it had gone public via a reverse merger with Surfside Acquisition, a Delaware shell company, a transaction in which a private company acquires an existing publicly listed entity to gain a stock market listing - raising $30 million in a concurrent private placement at $3 a share."

"Turns out the previous public listing was public in name only. The reverse merger with Surfside was completed, making Deep Fission a reporting company with SEC obligations, but its stock never actually traded. The company had said it intended to list on the OTCQB, a marketplace for developing companies that don't meet the listing requirements of major exchanges like the NYSE or Nasdaq. But searches for Deep Fission on OTCQB don't return any results, and the company, in its S-1, denied that its stock had ever been publicly traded."

"In response to questions from TechCrunch, Deep Fission declined to comment, citing the quiet period before its IPO. Deep Fission's new public offering on Nasdaq is following the more traditional IPO route, with an offering that would value the company at up to $1.66 billion. It's a sizable figure for a company that one year ago was struggling to raise a $15 million funding round."

"Stranger still, the picture painted in the S-1 filed on May 20 is arguably bleaker than the one outlined in the December filing with the SEC. Its timeline for turning on its first reactor has slipped. Further, back in December, it had hoped to achieve criticality - the point at which a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining - by July 20"

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