Aalo Atomics: Leveraging DOE R&D

Nucleation announces its investment in Aalo Atomic’s Series A with Fund I

Aalo Atomics is a group that recognizes the importance of being one of the first to market with an NRC-approved reactor design that can be shipped to customers. They have not only hit the ground running but they have adopted an approach that  leverages publicly-funded DOE design and development work that will help to expedite the NRC’s approval of the Aalo-1, which will be modeled upon the DOE’s MARVEL reactor that is being built now and which will be producing test data within the next few years.

MARVEL, a sodium-potassium-cooled micro-reactor and the first Gen IV design to come out of the national labs in over thirty years, is being built now with completion expected in 2025. The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) expects to complete construction, load fuel in 2026 and begin testing this very pared down design inside the Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility in 2027. Aalo will be well-situated to access the publicly available test data produced by this DOE research program, to provide it with a true competitive advantage when applying for their own NRC license for their comparable design.

In their own words, Aalo is “moving fast and continually hitting significant milestones,” having managed to recruit nearly all of their technical team right out of the INL MARVEL program. With that level of highly experience technical expertise on board, they have been able to finish their conceptual design of the Aalo-1, a scaled up version of MARVEL, which they plan to use for their first commercial reactor.
 
Aalo has also signed a siting memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the DOE for a site at the INL so that they have great access to the support team and testing facilities that are increasingly available to developers from the INL and they’ve set up an office in Idaho Falls for that purpose. Finally, they’ve already submitted a Regulatory Engagement Plan (REP) with the NRC and have negotiated a preliminary agreement with a potential customer for a fleet of Aalo-1 reactors.
 
This is a pretty good start for a team that had previously raised just over $6 million, prior to closing the current round of $27 million just a few weeks ago. We are impressed by this team’s speed, efficiency and competitive strategy and are honored to have joined an impressive group of investors backing them, which includes 50Y, Valor Equity Partners, Harpoon Ventures, Crosscut, SNR, Alumni Ventures, Earth Venture and more.
 
The Aalo team is super-charging their efforts with this financing. They plan to continue to scale their team, adding sales, EPC, manufacturing, fuel and finance talent. They also plan to build a non-nuclear prototype to better refine and demonstrate their design (which we believe is a must in order to make real progress) and they also plan to open a factory headquarters to begin preparations for mass production capability, something that is only possibly because there are existing specifications available from the DOE’s MARVEL design now being built.
 

We expect many more good things to come from this dynamic young team. Read more about Aalo and their Series A financing on their website, or from Bloomberg or Politico Pro.  Follow some additional milestones with reporting from Sonal Patel, of Power Magazine, on Aalo negotiating its first PPA.


(Note: Investors who have subscribed to Nucleation’s Fund I Q3-2024 will get participation in this investment.)

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