SB Energy seeks $500 million from Japan for U.S. IPO

SB Energy filed for its U.S. IPO this month, and the Japanese tranche is being arranged alongside Mizuho's U.S. arm, with Mizuho Financial Group, Daiwa Securities Group, PayPay Securities, Rakuten Securities and SBI Holdings acting as selling agents. The effort is designed to reach Japan's household financial assets of about $15 trillion, the same pool that the SpaceX IPO tapped in June when it raised $2.2 billion in the country.

The company's pitch rests on the scale of AI-related buildout. Beyond its 8.8 gigawatts of data center capacity contracted or under construction in Texas and Ohio, it has power projects contracted, under construction or operating that will deliver 5.5 gigawatts of usable power. Analysts at UBS Group expect $511 billion to be spent by 2030 to close the gap in power demand, largely driven by data centers, per the filing.

What the offering ultimately depends on is whether Japanese retail investors will commit to a local slice of a foreign listing, a structure the filing notes is rare in a market where sizable offerings have become uncommon. For SB Energy, the test is whether that demand materializes at the price Nvidia has already agreed to pay for its $1.5 billion private placement.