NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 17:27 ET — After-hours
- EKSO ended up about 94% after disclosing a deal outline to combine Applied Digital’s cloud unit with the Nasdaq-listed company.
- A filing said Applied Digital would own roughly 97% of the combined company, leaving existing EKSO holders with about 3% before any deal financing.
- Traders are now watching for definitive terms, SEC proxy filings and any move to sell Ekso’s legacy exoskeleton business.
Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc shares nearly doubled on Tuesday, ending up about 94% at $10.58 after the company outlined a deal that would combine Applied Digital’s cloud computing business with the Nasdaq-listed EKSO. The stock was flat in after-hours trading after swinging between $7.80 and $12.70 during the session, giving the company a market value of roughly $36 million.
The move matters because it recasts a small medical-device maker as a potential vehicle for an artificial-intelligence infrastructure business, one of the market’s hottest themes going into year-end.
It also highlights the risk for existing shareholders: the proposed structure implies heavy dilution and a radically different corporate focus if the transaction closes.
In a Form 8-K filing, Ekso said it and Applied Digital entered an exclusive, non-binding term sheet — a preliminary outline that does not obligate either party — for the business combination. The filing said Applied Digital would own about 97% of the combined company, while stock held by Ekso’s existing shareholders would represent about 3% of the outstanding shares, before any equity financing linked to the closing.
The combined company would operate as ChronoScale, positioned as an “accelerated compute” platform aimed at artificial intelligence workloads. Accelerated compute typically refers to using graphics processing units, or GPUs — chips widely used to train and run AI models — rather than standard server processors.
Applied Digital said the plan is to separate its cloud platform from its data-center ownership and development business so each can scale independently. Applied Digital Cloud generated about $75.2 million in revenue over the 12 months ended Aug. 31, 2025, and was among the first platforms to deploy Nvidia’s H100 GPUs at scale in 2023, the companies said. Ekso Chief Executive Scott Davis said the company “believe[s] the Proposed Transaction has the potential” to maximize shareholder value. Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc.
Applied Digital shares fell about 3% to $24.08 in after-hours trading, indicating investors were more cautious about the reshuffle at the parent company than the rerating in EKSO.
The sharp intraday range underscored how quickly sentiment can shift when a microcap stock becomes tied to AI infrastructure narratives — and how sensitive the shares may remain to each new detail.
Investors will now look for a definitive agreement, along with SEC filings laying out valuation, governance and any financing needed to close the transaction. The timetable matters, too: the companies have said they expect to target a closing in the first half of 2026, subject to due diligence and shareholder and regulatory approvals.
Ekso also said it plans to continue exploring strategic transactions for a possible sale of all or substantially all of its current exoskeleton business, leaving open questions about what remains inside the public shell if the cloud combination proceeds.
Until those pieces become concrete, traders are likely to treat EKSO as a deal-driven stock, with the next catalyst coming from filings that turn the outline into binding terms — or signal that negotiations have changed.
