Enhanced geothermal has had a promising few years, nudged forward by data centers’ insatiable demand for electricity. Fervo Energy has landed deals on those tailwinds, suggesting, but not guaranteeing, that the company was through the “valley of death.”

The term describes when a startup has proven its tech, but hasn’t raised enough money to show it can work profitably at scale. Many startups fail to ever move past this point, and end up dying off.

Exactly when a startup emerges from the valley of death is debatable. One measure is whether it can raise project finance debt that isn’t tethered to the startup itself. Fervo has raised debt before, but today it announced a $421 million loan that is considered “non-recourse,” which means that liability for the loan is tied to the specific project. Default would sink the project, not necessarily the company. 

Not that the project is in any danger. The financing is for Fervo’s Cape Station power plant in Utah, which will begin operation this year before scaling to 100 megawatts in early 2027 and eventually 500 megawatts when fully built. All of the power has been bought at this point.

Fervo pointed out that non-recourse financing doesn’t typically apply to first-of-a-kind facilities, which Cape Station is — sort of. While the site isn’t fully developed, Fervo has data on over a dozen wells that it has drilled there. That undoubtedly helped the company seal the deal.