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Nuclear startup X-Energy has added $200 million to an existing $500 million Series C round.
The small module reactor specialist previously announced a deal with Amazon in October, which included an investment and development agreements to build 300 megawatts worth of nuclear power plants in the Pacific Northwest.
New investors in the round include Ares Management, Laurene Powell-Jobs’s Emerson Collective, Jane Street, and Segra Capital Management.
X-Energy is one of many nuclear startups to have benefitted from the AI-driven data center boom alongside the Trump administration’s support of nuclear power.
The company’s Xe-100 reactors are expected to generate 80 megawatts of electricity each, or enough to power around 50,000 homes.
The reactors are powered by so-called TRISO fuel, which was designed to be safer than the more commonly used fuel rods. Each “pebble” of fuel contains around 18,000 poppy seed-sized, carbon-coated uranium particles, and a single reactor will be loaded with 200,000 pebbles.
X-Energy expects its first reactor for Amazon to come online in the early 2030s.
The company said the new funding will help complete its reactor design and licensing along with building the first phase of its fuel fabrication plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor. De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
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