X-energy Secures $700M Series D Amid Nuclear Interest Surge

Nuclear startup X-energy has successfully raised $700 million in a Series D funding round, as reported by TechCrunch. This latest funding initiative follows a recent expansion of their Series C, which increased from $500 million to $700 million, bringing the total amount raised by X-energy over the last year to an impressive $1.4 billion.

Overall, the company has raised a total of $1.8 billion to date. The funds from this new round will primarily be directed towards building a supply chain for their small modular reactors, or SMRs. X-energy has reported having orders for 144 SMRs, which are expected to generate a total of 11 gigawatts of electricity.

Notable customers include significant players such as Amazon, Dow, and the British energy company Centrica. The Series D round was led by Jane Street, which previously participated in the expanded Series C round.

Other investors contributing to this round include Ares Management funds, ARK Invest, Corner Capital, Emerson Collective, Galvanize, Hood River Capital Management, NGP, Point72, Reaves Asset Management, Segra Capital Management, and XTX Ventures.

X-energy is focused on developing high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors, a technology that has been recently utilized in countries like Japan and China. Each of their Xe-100 reactors is designed to produce 80 megawatts of electricity and operates using uniquely engineered fuel in the form of billiard ball-sized, carbon-coated pebbles that contain uranium particles.

Inside the reactors, helium gas circulates over these pebbles to collect heat, which is then utilized to produce electricity via a steam turbine. This surge in investment and interest in X-energy is part of a broader trend within the nuclear industry, particularly as tech companies and data center developers are increasingly looking towards nuclear energy as a sustainable option.

Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund has shown particular interest, having led the initial investment in the startup's Series C, and has committed to purchasing over 600 megawatts of nuclear capacity in regions like the Pacific Northwest and Virginia, with plans for the reactors to become operational in the early 2030s.

Overall, Amazon's collaboration with X-energy could potentially lead to the deployment of as much as 5 gigawatts of nuclear energy capacity by the year 2039. X-energy is currently competing with several other startups in the small modular reactor space, all aiming to rejuvenate the nuclear sector in the United States.

However, despite the promising designs being developed, only a handful of SMR power plants have been completed thus far, and none are currently operational in the U.S.