Valar Atomics Nabs $1.2 Billion in Funding

Valar Atomics Inc., an El Segundo-based nuclear energy company, announced in early August that it raised $1 billion in series B funding and closed a $200 million credit facility.

Sequoia Capital led the round, with additional participation from investors like Venice-based Riot Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Conviction Partners, Snowpoint Ventures, Apandion, Dream Ventures and HOF Capital. Erebor Bank led the line of credit.

Valar develops small nuclear reactors that alleviate the energy grid by being placed in areas that require copious amounts of power. In 2025, the company became the first venture-backed organization to achieve criticality, a stable state that allows the chain reaction of a nuclear reactor to sustain itself by looping the reaction over and over again. With the fresh funding, Valar will begin manufacturing its integrated reactor systems.

“This has been Valar’s mission since its inception. A project can build one reactor, but a fleet requires manufacturing,” Isaiah Taylor, founder of Valar Atomics, said in a statement. “This series B financing is the fuel for this mission. It will allow us to fully execute a vertically integrated, hardware first approach; one that encompasses everything from reactor deployment and long-term operations to fuel production.”

Valar Atomics is one of many energy startups in the South Bay rallying to prop up the power-intensive artificial intelligence data centers through nuclear power. Radiant Industries Inc., also based in El Segundo, built a portable nuclear microreactor called Kaleidos. Antares Nuclear Inc., a Redondo Beach-based nuclear energy company, is also building transportable nuclear reactors to bring power to energy-intensive areas. The technology is targeted toward data centers, industrial operations and hydrogen production.

These small nuclear reactors are paving a new path for nuclear energy. China has successfully built and deployed a handful of small modular reactors. In 2020, Russia employed the world’s first floating nuclear plant, which is a small modular reactor that is tied to a barge in Siberia. The size of these reactors makes them modular and more portable, allowing for them to be dispatched in disaster zones, music festival venues and remote areas.

“More than 70 years after the first nuclear reactors were built, traditional nuclear plants required a fortune to fund and decades to build,” Taylor said. “American supply chains no longer had the strength necessary to build a traditional nuclear plant on a reliable timetable.”

However, the technology still has a way to go. The U.S. has cut regulatory compliance standards to develop these reactors quickly, but American reactor developers trying to find customers in Europe are expected to be subjected to a far more rigorous regulatory timeline. A 2025 paper by the European Environmental Bureau called the U.S. “a good example of what not to do” when it comes to developing a small modular reactor strategy.

Valar’s combined $1.2 billion marks the second-largest single fundraising round so far this year, behind Travis Kalanick’s $1.7 billion round for Atoms.