Deep Fission aims for USD1.66 billion valuation

The US company is planning to raise around USD156 million in listing on the Nasdaq exchange. It says it "intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general working capital and corporate purposes, including towards the engineering, research and development, licensing and construction of its first pilot nuclear reactor and related technologies".

It says that "our commercial strategy is focused on deploying Gravity Reactors in markets with rapidly growing electricity demand and increasing need for reliable, affordable baseload power. Our initial commercial focus is on hyperscale data centres and other large power users, and over time may expand to include utilities, industrial operators, and government or defence installations".

Deep Fission's Gravity reactor is a small modular reactor (SMR) designed to be placed underground in an optimised borehole one mile (1.6 km) deep. Using traditional pressurised water reactor technology and LEU fuel, each reactor will generate 15 MWe, the company says, while its small footprint and dense power output means it will need a fraction of the land needed for traditional surface nuclear: ten reactors on the same site would deliver 150 MWe, or 100 reactors would produce 1.5 GWe. The passive shielding and natural containment offered by the surrounding geology, and the combination of mature technologies from the nuclear, oil and gas, and geothermal industries, while using off-the-shelf parts and readily available LEU fuel, aims to improve safety and security and enable a faster, more cost-effective path to deployment.

Deep Fission broke ground in December at the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, Kansas, for its pilot project and plans to build a full-scale commercial plant there following the test reactor demonstration. In its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company says that "in addition to the Kansas Site, we have entered into multiple non-binding LOIs (letters of intent) with potential development partners for candidate commercial sites in the United States. These LOIs relate to potential deployment opportunities in Kansas, Texas, and Utah as well as other locations in the United States and internationally".

In August last year, Deep Fission was one of 10 companies selected by the US Department of Energy to receive support under its Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, which aims to see at least three designs achieve criticality by 4 July 2026.

Deep Fission was founded in 2023 by father-daughter team Elizabeth and Richard Muller, who also co-founded Deep Isolation in 2016 to develop the concept of placing canisters of radioactive waste hundreds of metres underground via a borehole.