Antares announced it has raised $470 million in Series C funding, co-led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital, with participation from Point72 Ventures, Shine Capital, Industrious Ventures, and others. The round, which includes $370 million in equity and $100 million in debt, is intended to accelerate Antares’ path from a demonstrated reactor to fielded power systems for defense and space, with initial deployments to U.S. military installations beginning by 2028.
The funding comes weeks after Antares took its Mark-0 reactor critical at Idaho National Laboratory, marking the first privately developed non-light-water reactor to achieve criticality in the United States in more than four decades, validating reactor physics, reactivity control, and instrumentation using TRISO fuel. The Series C will fund the Mark-1 electricity-producing reactor in 2027 and initial deployments to defense customers in 2028, including the U.S. Air Force under the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations initiative. Antares is working toward a deadline set by Executive Order 14299, which directs the Department of War to begin operating a reactor at a domestic military installation by September 30, 2028.
KEY QUOTES:
“On June 4th, we won the race to criticality, and now we’ve shifted to the race to commercialization. We’ve secured firm contracts to build reactors. To do that, we’re announcing $470M of equity and debt to invest one-to-one with the taxpayer in bringing this technology to commercial scale.”
Jordan Bramble, CEO and Co-founder, Antares
“Jordan and the Antares team just achieved the first private advanced reactor criticality in decades with a factory built microreactor. Now they transition to a new era: The scaled deployment of microreactors that can operate reliably, safely, and economically for years on U.S. military bases.”
Alana Palmedo, Managing Partner, Paradigm
