(Bloomberg) -- A manic rally for Oklo Inc., a developer of advanced nuclear systems backed by Sam Altman, has delivered a massive paper windfall to its founders and early investors since going public earlier this year. Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm is among those able to start cashing in soon.
Major venture capital investors that previously served on the company’s board can begin divesting some 13.5 million shares as soon as Tuesday when restrictions preventing early backers from selling are lifted, six months after Oklo’s blank-check deal closed.
Potential sellers include Mithril Capital Management LLC, the firm co-founded by Thiel and Ajay Royan, as well as DCVC. Each owns more than 6.5 million shares, regulatory filings show.
Oklo shares have been volatile since going public, sinking as low as $5.35 on Sept. 9 before surging more than 425% within two months. The stock hit a peak of $28.12 on Wednesday as investors flocked to companies associated with the nuclear power industry before a four-day slide zapped 17% of its value. As of 11:55 am in New York, the company was worth some $2.5 billion.
The stock’s wild ride means the pair of early investors’ stakes are each worth more than $130 million — doubling in value from the May special-purpose acquisition company merger. It has also brought paper windfalls to Altman, the chief executive officer of OpenAI, and serial dealmaker Michael Klein, who co-sponsored the SPAC that brought Oklo public, as well as executives Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran. The latter group is currently unable to sell shares until May, though there are caveats that could open up millions of shares for sale as soon as next week if the stock continues to perform well.
A representative for Mithril did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for Oklo and DCVC declined to comment.
Shares of the company, along with other US power stocks, were under pressure on Monday after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 2-1 late Friday against a proposal that would have increased the amount of power supplied to an Amazon.com Inc. data facility adjacent to Talen Energy Corp.’s Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.
Santa Clara, California-based Oklo is years from having a functional operating reactor, something it had said would likely be in service before the end of the decade. Nonetheless, its shares have benefited from excitement around adoption of artificial intelligence and other computing that’s driving a boom in power-hungry data centers and helping to boost demand for electricity for the first time in decades.
Oklo is among the companies that would benefit from Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, Citigroup Inc. analyst Vikram Bagri wrote last month. Nuclear names had participated in the so-called “Trump Trade” which has been wound and unwound in recent weeks.
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