Heliogen
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$2 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard2022
- 💸Last valuation~$20M
How it happened
Heliogen was a Bill Gates-backed cleantech startup using fields of AI-controlled mirrors to concentrate sunlight to extreme temperatures for industrial heat and green hydrogen. It went public on the NYSE in late 2021 via a roughly $2B SPAC merger, but its technology was slow to commercialize and the stock collapsed about 99% onto the OTC market before Zeo Energy absorbed it in 2024. Glassdoor reviews from the years that followed described constant strategy churn — engineers said the company kept switching between receiver technologies without ever shipping a product, and tied repeated layoffs and a finance-executive-turned-CEO installed after the founder's exit to the erosion of focus and morale.
Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.
Source: Reuters / BizTimes / stockanalysis (Bill Gates-backed concentrated-solar-power startup; went public via a ~$2B SPAC merger with Athena Technology Acquisition Corp in late 2021; technology and commercialization stalled, the stock collapsed ~99% and was pushed to the OTC market; agreed to merge with Zeo Energy in 2024 at a tiny valuation)
