Radiant, the microreactor company building a deployable fission reactor designed to fit on a truck and meet the energy needs of remote and specialized operations, announced on Thursday it raised a $100M funding round.
DCVC led the Series C, which also included participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund, Decisive Point, McKinley Alaska Growth Capital, Boost VC, Also Capital, Felicis, Washington Harbour Partners, and Chevron Technology Ventures. The fresh $100M batch brings Radiant’s total fundraising to $160M.
“This funding means the reactor we set out to build in 2020 will be built and tested in 2026, which we committed to from the very first dollar raised,” Radiant CEO Doug Bernauer said in a LinkedIn post.
Time to shine: Bernauer and much of the Radiant team hail from SpaceX, where moving quickly, challenging conventional ways of building things, and aggressively simplifying designs and operations are nonnegotiables.
That mindset carried over to Radiant, which is working on a microreactor called Kaleidos that can be easily manufactured and deployed to meet niche, high-value energy needs, replacing diesel generators for military and remote customers.
- Kaleidos is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that uses TRISO fuel.
- It’s designed to provide 1.2 MW of electricity and 1.9 MW of thermal power.
What’s next? Speedy deployment is a key part of Radiant’s strategy, and the company is working hard to hit its self-imposed deadlines. The next step is to build the Kaleidos Development Unit, a test reactor that will go through the ringer at Idaho National Laboratory.
Radiant is committed to supplying more than 10 units of the Kaleidos microreactor by 2030, and it’s dead-set on meeting that goal on time and budget.
“New nuclear is around the corner, and it’s arriving on a semi-truck,” Bernauer said in a release.
+ While we’re here: The funding round wasn’t Radiant’s only announcement last week. The company also completed an initial design phase study ahead of testing its Kaleidos microreactor at Idaho National Laboratory.
+ Looking for more? Ignition caught up with a16z general partner, American Dynamism lead, and Radiant investor David Ulevitch in September and chatted about Radiant’s place in the nuclear energy sector. Read the full Q+A here.
Lead Reporter of Ignition
