Sequoia Capital has led a $1 billion Series B funding round for Valar Atomics, a three-year-old startup building small modular nuclear reactors, according to a company statement reported by Bloomberg and TechCrunch. The deal values the El Segundo, California based firm at $6 billion, including the new investment, a threefold jump from the $2 billion valuation it commanded earlier this year.
Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire will join Valar's board as part of the deal. Atreides Management, Point72 and Snowpoint Ventures also participated in the round, and Valar has separately lined up a $200 million credit facility, the company said in a statement on Monday.
From demonstration to production
Valar has said the new capital will help it move from demonstrating small reactors to manufacturing them at scale. The company achieved a milestone in July when it used a nuclear fission reaction to generate enough electricity to power an Nvidia AI chip and host a website, one of four companies globally to start a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction this year, according to a report from The Next Web.
Valar's reactor design uses helium as a coolant and runs at higher temperatures than conventional plants, an approach the company argues is better suited to the steady, high power demands of data centres. The startup has also been in a legal dispute with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission over its licensing process for small reactor designs, CNBC has reported.
An AI-driven race for atomic power
Valar and Nvidia are now planning a 30-megawatt nuclear-powered AI facility in Utah, described as the first commercial application of their partnership, according to The Next Web. The tie-up reflects a broader scramble among chipmakers and data centre operators to secure reliable, carbon-free electricity as artificial intelligence workloads strain existing power grids.
“"The company is trying to raise $1 billion in fresh equity, with venture capital firm Sequoia Capital expected to lead the deal," Briefs reported ahead of the announcement, noting Valar had already raised $450 million in total capital.”
Europe watches a fast-moving sector
The Valar deal underscores how much capital is flowing into the small modular reactor sector on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, momentum has been building too: Rolls-Royce SMR secured a multi-billion pound contract in June to build three small reactors for Sweden, while Italy's newcleo is developing a test facility at the ENEA research centre in Brasimone, according to Euronews and industry outlet IO+.
European regulators and governments, including in the Czech Republic, have also been signing memoranda with reactor developers as they weigh how quickly to licence a new generation of smaller, factory-built plants. For European utilities and AI infrastructure investors, the scale of American venture funding for firms like Valar is a signal of how competitive the race for next-generation nuclear power has become, even as most SMR designs, including in Europe, remain early in development.
Valar's rapid valuation growth, from $2 billion earlier this year to $6 billion now, illustrates how investor appetite for nuclear-powered computing infrastructure has intensified alongside the AI boom, even though commercial-scale deployment of small reactors remains some years away.
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