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Shell USA Inc. could be getting a Bay Area electric vehicle charging business at what might be considered a big discount.
The subsidiary of oil giant Shell plc announced Wednesday plans to buy Volta Inc. for $169 million in cash. That's about 9% of what Volta was worth when it went public just 17 months ago.
Shell plans to pay 86 cents a share for Volta. That was about a 18% premium over Volta's closing price of 72.7 cents Tuesday.
The deal announcement comes as the San Francisco business has been struggling. Through the first nine months of last year, Volta lost $128 million on $38 million in sales. After its operations burned through $119 million in cash in the first three quarters last year it had just $15.6 million in cash left at the end of September. As a result, it warned investors there were serious doubts about its ability to survive as a business over the next 12 months and in November cut more than half its employees.
With its business faring poorly, investors soured on its shares. After going public at $9.30 a share in a blank-check merger, Volta's stock fell 96% last year, ending the year at just 35 cents a piece. In November, the company told investors it was in peril of having its shares de-listed by the New York Stock Exchange because they were was trading below $1 a piece.
The company already saw a management shake-up. Founders Scott Mercer and Chris Wendel resigned as CEO and president, respectively, last March.
The Shell deal would be the latest in a string of acquisitions of electric vehicle charging businesses by traditional fossil fuel and energy companies. Shell last year bought European charging network Ubitricity Gesellschaft für verteilte Energiesysteme mbH. BP plc, TotalEnergies SE and Electricite de France have also acquired electric vehicle charging assets.
Unlike its rivals, Volta doesn't charge customers who recharge its cars at its kiosks. Instead, it sells ads that are displayed on its charging stations, which it locates in shopping malls and grocery stores.
Shell has agreed to provide Volta with loans to keep its business going through the completion of the sale, according to the announcement. The companies expect the deal to close by midyear.
Here's more Bay Area venture and startup news at midweek:
Fundings
- Noon Energy Inc., Palo Alto, $28 million: Clean Energy Ventures and Aramco Ventures led the Series A round for this developer of a battery for storing energy generated by intermittent sources like solar and wind.
- Living Carbon PBC, San Francisco, $21 million: Temasek Holdings led the Series A round for this developer of plants that can capture and store carbon. Lowercarbon Capital, Toyota Ventures and Felicis Ventures also invested.
- Amberflo.io Inc., Santa Clara, $15 million: Norwest Venture Partners led the Series A round for this provider of usage and billing software for cloud service providers. Operator Collective also participated.
- Ogmagod Inc. (dba CloseFactor), Palo Alto, $15 million: Vertex Ventures and Sequoia Capital led the Series A round for this provider of automated sales and marketing software. GTMFund and Neythri Futures Fund also invested.
- Forum Mobility Inc., Oakland, $15 million: CBRE Investment Management, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, Homecoming Capital, Elemental Excelerator, Obvious Ventures, Edison International and Overture VC invested in the Series A round for this provider of electric-powered freight trucks and operator of charging stations.
- Rive Inc., San Francisco, $10 million: Two Sigma Ventures led the Series A round for this provider of animation software.
- Axiom Cloud Inc., San Jose, $7.4 million: Blue Bear Capital led the Series A round for this provider of software that monitors refrigerators and energy usage for grocery stores. Frontier VC, Artifact Capital, Leadout Capital, Momenta Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures and Vela Partners also participated.
- Human Interest Inc., San Francisco, undisclosed amount: BlackRock Inc. acquired a minority stake in this provider of employee retirement plans for small and midsized businesses.
- Muir Wood Adolescent & Family Services LLC, Petaluma, undisclosed amount: Avesi Partners invested in this provider of mental health and substance abuse services for teens.
IPOs
- Nextracker Inc. filed for an initial public offering. The provider of systems designed to help solar arrays track the sun didn't disclose how much it hopes to raise nor how many shares it plans to sell. The Fremont-based company plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol NXT. Nextracker is a subsidiary of Flex Ltd. (Nasdaq: FLEX), which will remain its majority stakeholder after the offering.
M&A
- Shockwave Medical Inc. agreed to buy Neovasc Inc. for $100 million. Neovasc (Nasdaq: NVCN), which has dual headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Minneapolis., is developing a device for the treatment of heart disease. Shockwave (Nasdaq: SWAV) is a medical device maker based in Santa Clara.
- Appfire Technologies LLC acquired a large portion of ServiceRocket Inc.'s Atlassian app portfolio for an undisclosed amount. Appfire is a provider of workflow and project management software based in Massachusetts. Based in Palo Alto, ServiceRocket offers tech consulting services.
Funders in the news
- Tim Draper has launched Draper Round Table. Former NBA player Baron Davis and LunarCrush Inc. CEO Joe Vezzani will be venture partners in the San Mateo-based operation. The Round Table is designed to be a deals syndication vehicle that will allow accredited investors share and find fellow investors for Web3 investments through the Draper Decentralized (DraperX) platform.
- GV has promoted Sangeen Zeb to general partner. GV is the Mountain View-based venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc. It focuses on early-stage deals.
- NightDragon has added Josiah Hsiung as a principal. Before joining the San Francisco-based venture firm, Hsiung was the head of growth at Instacart — legally Maplebear Inc. NightDragon focuses on cybersecurity startups.
- Norwest Venture Partners added Irem Rami as a principal focused on health care. Before joining the Palo Alto venture firm, Rami was a growth investor on Summit Partners' health care team.
- Redpoint Ventures of Woodside promoted Jacob Effron to partner.
- Patient Square Capital hired Catherine Soler as a director overseeing environmental, social and governance. Before joining the Menlo Park investment firm, Soler had a similar role at Vista Equity Partners.