Nuclear power launch Antares Nuclear said on Monday that it has raised $470 million to build small reactors for US military bases.
The Series C round, led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital with participation from Industrious Ventures, Point72 Ventures and Shine Capital, highlights growing investor interest in advanced nuclear startups — a trend fueled by the boom in AI data centers and demand for new energy sources. The Series C round included $370 million in equity and $100 million in debt.
Antares is developing a small modular reactor (SMR) capable of generating between 100 kilowatts and 1 megawatt of electricity, enough to power up to 750 homes.
Like many other advanced nuclear launches, Antares’ reactor uses TRISO fuel, which encapsulates uranium in carbon and ceramic shells. TRISO has been touted for years as a safer alternative to traditional nuclear fuel. Billiard ball-sized spheres of TRISO fuel can be cooled with gases such as helium or molten salts. The coating is designed to prevent the fuel from melting in standard high-temperature reactors.
Antares’ demonstration reactor, Mark-0, has reached criticality on June 4 at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The company is one of the three finalists to the Pentagon’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program, which will test SMRs at Air Force bases in Colorado and Montana. Antares plans to bring its first power-generating reactor online next year, with planned deployments to US military installations in 2028.
Investors are flocking to nuclear power, and fission in particular, as electricity demand rises in response to data center construction and the broader electrification of the economy. In April, X-energy raised $1 billion through an IPO, while Radiant Energy, Standard Nuclear and Last Energy have raised nine-figure rounds since December.
Antares closed its latest round, a $96 million Series B, also in December. In total, Antares has raised $604 million, based on a TechCrunch analysis of PitchBook data.
Despite investor enthusiasm, advanced nuclear startups face many hurdles to commercialization, including an immature supply chain in the U.S. and challenges with scaling up production. Many SMR startups tout the benefits of mass production, claiming it will significantly reduce costs. But the benefits of mass production usually take at least a decade to materialize, and no startup has yet reached that stage.
The first SMRs, expected to come online in the early 2030s, are unlikely to be economically competitive with most new power plants. Lazard, where analyzes the cost of energy for a variety of technologies, he expects new SMRs to cost about $214 per megawatt hour. At that price, it would cost more than all but the most expensive gas turbines.
Antares has not disclosed its price. But given the realities of the market, it’s no surprise that the startup decided to go after contracts for the US military, a notoriously price-insensitive customer.
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