Newcleo, Europe’s best-funded nuclear energy startup, has raised a further €48m as it continues its hunt to close a €1bn round.
After announcing it was setting out to raise the sum 18 months ago, it’s closed just €135m — including an €87m raise in May. It brings the total funding raised by the company to €535m.
Investors in the round include Italian pension fund Inarcassa, Italian industrial plant equipment manufacturer Walter Tosto and French engineering consultancy company Ingérop. Family offices and individual investors were also involved.
The company’s attempt to raise €1bn follows a downturn-induced drop in late-stage rounds globally and reports last year that US nuclear startups were facing their own capital crunch.
Newcleo, Europe’s only nuclear unicorn, is also announcing the relocation of its HQ from London to France, confirming Sifted reporting in August.
“Relocating our headquarters to Paris is a strategic milestone in accelerating our mission to deliver the next generation of sustainable nuclear energy,” says Stefano Buono, founder and CEO of Newcleo. “We are now better positioned to deepen our European partnerships and tap into funding resources from institutional and industrial investors.”
Turning to France
Newcleo is developing lead-cooled small modular reactors (SMRs) fuelled by radioactive waste, which it hopes will be rolled out for commercial use in the 2030s.
The company said in its annual accounts, which were released in August, that it had announced to shareholders and employees in January that it was relocating its HQ from the UK to France to increase the potential of attracting “significant funding from EU financial institutions”.
French government-funded investment bank Bpifrance — which has pumped billions into the country’s startup sector in recent years — has “strict” investment requirements on holding companies being based in the country, Tommy Stadlen, cofounder and partner at Giant Ventures, told Sifted in August.
“Positioning its headquarters in Paris opens up Newcleo’s access to a broader range of European funding opportunities,” the company says, adding that it’s “now better placed to secure significant investments and grants from European institutions and institutional investors”.
It’s not just cash France can offer, but radioactive waste, too.
Earlier this year Newcleo announced it would increase the size of a planned fuel factory in France — and axe plans for one in the UK — after a reported charm offensive from President Emmanuel Macron.
Newcleo’s UK general manager Andrew Murdoch told Sifted in March that the UK government had said its waste plutonium would not be available to be turned into fuel for use in the type of reactor Newcleo is building.
“The creation of a dedicated French holding company reinforces our position to ensure we have a strong connection to an advanced fuel cycle to support our fuel cycle ambitions,” a Newcleo spokesperson said in August.
Still on track?
Newcleo says it’s still on track to deliver to the timeline it set earlier this year.
The company plans to complete a research facility in Italy by 2026, a demonstrator reactor in France by 2030 and hopes to launch its first revenue-making commercial reactor sometime after 2033. Further down the line, it aims to deploy a fleet of its power plants across Europe.
It currently has operations in the UK, France, Italy, Switzerland and Slovakia, and employs more than 850 people across 19 locations in those countries.
Newcleo hasn’t set a date on when it hopes to close the €1bn round, but the company had €221m in the bank on June 30, 2024, according to its latest accounts. Losses more than tripled to €57.5m in 2023.
While it’ll be years before Newcleo makes money from its reactors, the company brought in €9m in revenue in 2023 — which it earned through a number of companies it acquired. In the first six months of 2024, the company tells Sifted it made €26m in revenue.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/nuclear-unicorn-newcleo-raise-relocation/
