Nuclear energy startup Aalo has closed a $100 million Series B round led by Valor Equity Partners, with the company targeting summer 2026 to bring its first reactor online—potentially the first advanced nuclear plant to operate in the U.S. in decades.
The funding will finance construction of Aalo-X, a demonstration plant that the company plans to co-locate with an experimental data center. The approach represents a new model for nuclear deployment, targeting AI workloads that require constant power availability.
The Technology Play
Aalo is betting on mass-manufactured, small modular reactors that can be factory-built and transported by road. The company completed its 40,000-square-foot pilot facility and full-scale non-nuclear prototype in the past year—a timeline CEO Matt Loszak emphasized as crucial to addressing nuclear energy's "too slow" reputation.
The startup's three-phase strategy starts with data centers, which represent just 1% of the global power market but offer a clear early customer base willing to pay premium rates for reliable baseload power. Phase two expands to municipal utilities and industrial applications, while phase three introduces a reactor roughly 10x more powerful while maintaining the same form factor.
Market Timing
The raise comes as AI companies face mounting pressure over energy consumption, with data center power demands projected to surge alongside compute requirements. Unlike traditional nuclear projects that take decades, Aalo claims its modular approach can deploy faster while maintaining the 24/7 availability that intermittent renewables can't match.
The company's ultimate target: electricity at 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, which would undercut most existing power sources and make nuclear competitive for broad industrial use.
Regulatory Hurdles
Aalo was selected by the Department of Energy through a competitive process under President Trump's May 2025 executive order reforming nuclear testing procedures. The company is targeting July 4, 2026, for achieving criticality—the point where a nuclear reactor becomes self-sustaining.
The funding round included participation from Fine Structure Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, NRG Energy, and over a dozen other investors, signaling broader confidence in next-generation nuclear despite the sector's historically challenging regulatory and economic environment.
