Bloom Energy News and Rumors: No Comment, Part III

We listed a bit of scuttlebutt surrounding KP-funded fuel cell vendor Bloom Energy in a recent blog post (see Bloom Rumors).

Here are some of the items we've tried to verify with Bloom over the past few months:

• News of an alleged $150 million dollar funding round and $1.45 billion valuation
• Rumors of an enormous government contract and a multi-million dollar order backlog from Coca-Cola and FedEx
• Why they’re using Advanced Equities to help them raise their next round
• The curious fund-raising tactics used by one of their investors, Northgate Capital

Add to that the additonal info uncovered in News and Rumors, Part II:

• East Tennessee will be the location of a 100-kilowatt demonstration fuel cell developed by Bloom that could be a precursor to the potential siting of a manufacturing facility in Tennessee
• Bloom's system is a 25-kilowatt unit and they put four together for a 100-kilowatt system
• Their first 100-kilowatt unit went to Google 
• eBay ordered four of the 100-kilowatt units
• The units run on natural gas which gives them about 48 percent efficiency overall
• Bloom is having production problems.

I'll add one more tidbit to this list:

• The San Francisco Airport is currently evaluating a Bloom Energy fuel cell unit.

Bloom had no comment about these claims – at least the last five times I approached Stu Aaron, their VP of Marketing.  But I'll keep trying.