‘Too early’ to speak IPO, Redwood Supplies’ incoming CFO says

Redwood Supplies has lastly discovered a brand new chief monetary officer roughly a 12 months and a half after its last one departed. He’s a well-known face to the previous Tesla executives working the battery recycling and power storage firm.

On Monday, Redwood Supplies mentioned it has employed former Tesla finance chief Deepak Ahuja as its new CFO. Ahuja joins an govt workforce that features Tesla’s former CTO (JB Straubel, Redwood’s founder and CEO) and former Tesla powertrain vice chairman Colin Campbell (Redwood’s CTO), amongst a variety of different Tesla expats all through the ranks. Most not too long ago, Ahuja was chief finance and enterprise officer at drone firm Zipline.

However regardless of Ahuja’s a few years working Tesla’s funds, and a sizzling IPO marketplace for something remotely associated to AI information facilities, he tells TechCrunch that it’s “too early” to speak about going public.

“Naturally, an IPO is a possible end result for any personal firm, and we’ll speak about it when the time is correct,” he mentioned. A part of his warning, he mentioned, was as a result of Redwood Supplies has to date had no bother elevating cash from blue-chip buyers. The corporate in January closed a $425 million Collection E funding spherical that introduced its whole capital raised to greater than $2 billion and its valuation to over $6 billion. It additionally added Google’s and Nvidia’s enterprise arm to its cap desk.

“Redwood has, I’d say, the crème de la crème of buyers already, who do have deep pockets,” Ahuja mentioned. “In the event that they’re excited, they’ll fund. However I additionally anticipate that new buyers will see what Redwood is doing, and so they’ll get equally excited, and can need to are available in and make investments and provide us, maybe, good phrases as effectively.”

Ahuja’s appointment comes at a pivotal second for Redwood Supplies. The corporate not too long ago misplaced its chief working officer (one other former Tesla exec) to retirement, together with no less than three different vice presidents. These executives left amidst a restructuring that affected 10% of its workforce (or round 135 workers), as TechCrunch first reported final month, whereas the corporate shifts assets towards its quickly rising power storage enterprise.

Ahuja advised TechCrunch he’s “excited by very revolutionary know-how options that affect our local weather [and] that handle our power wants,” and he’s stayed shut with Straubel for the reason that pair left Tesla in 2019. The truth is, Ahuja advised TechCrunch that he’s a “small investor” in Redwood Supplies.

“In so some ways, it felt like a pure match, by way of the power storage enterprise, the recycling enterprise — all of those are such important wants for our nation and our society that it felt like the appropriate place to be,” he mentioned.

There’s an plain quantity of hype round AI, with SpaceX about to go public, OpenAI and Anthropic rumored to be contemplating IPOs, and billions of {dollars} being raised to construct information facilities. Redwood’s power storage enterprise is initially focused at serving to AI information facilities handle their energy hundreds, although Ahuja mentioned he’s not anxious about getting swept up within the exuberance.

“I believe JB and I each have seen so many cycles of hype and disillusion in our lives that we’re going to be very aware and acutely aware of how we message, how we handle, and the way we develop the corporate,” he mentioned. “We’re coping with {hardware} right here, which, by definition, brings a sure diploma of sanity” in comparison with what’s occurring on the software-focused AI firms, he added.