Microreactor startup Antares raises $96M for land, sea, and space-based nuclear power

Nuclear startup Antares said Tuesday it has raised $96 cardinal successful Series B backing arsenic it pursues its tiny modular reactor design.

The round, which was led by Shine Capital with information from Alt Capital, Caffeinated, FiftyThree Stations, Industrious, and others, consists of $71 cardinal successful equity and $25 cardinal successful debt.

Antares says it is targeting commercial, defense, and space-based applications with its R1 microreactor, which volition nutrient betwixt 100 kilowatts to 1 megawatt of electricity. The plan uses TRISO fuel, which successful Antares lawsuit is spheres of carbon- and ceramic-coated uranium embedded successful graphite.

The startup is 1 of respective companies that person benefitted precocious from renewed involvement successful atomic powerfulness implicit the past six months.

Last week, Amazon-backed X-energy said it had raised a $700 cardinal Series D round, which came connected the heels of an upsized $700 cardinal Series C that closed successful February. The institution is besides designing a reactor astir TRISO fuel. Deep Fission, which had struggled to rise wealth arsenic precocious arsenic April, went nationalist successful a $30 cardinal reverse merger successful September. 

Aalo Atomics raised $100 million successful August to physique a objection information halfway powered by a microreactor, and successful June, Nvidia contributed to a $650 cardinal round for TerraPower, a tiny modular reactor startup besides backed by Bill Gates.

Big atomic plants person been fixed a 2nd chance, too.

Earlier this month, Microsoft spouse Constellation Energy received a $1 cardinal loan from the Department of Energy to restart a reactor astatine Three Mile Island by 2028. That task is expected to outgo $1.6 cardinal to refurbished the reactor that was idled successful 2019. In October, Google said it would enactment with NextEra Energy to reopen a atomic powerfulness plant successful Iowa that was damaged during a torrential downpour successful 2020.

Earlier this summer, Amazon bought 1.92 gigawatts of generating capableness from a Talen Energy atomic works successful Pennsylvania. Meta besides said successful June it would buy the cleanable vigor attributes from a Constellation Energy atomic powerfulness works successful Illinois.

And portion large atomic has been a large beneficiary, the Trump medication is bullish connected tiny nuclear’s imaginable to revive the industry’s fortunes successful the coming decade.

In August, Antares was named 1 of 11 participants successful the Department of Energy’s reactor aviator program, which aims to person astatine slightest 3 of those statesman cognition by July 4, 2026, a timeline that’s importantly faster than the atomic manufacture is accustomed to.

Antares has said it aims to show its reactor for the DOE adjacent year, and is readying to crook connected its full-power reactor sometime successful 2027.