US-based X-Energy, which is developing advanced nuclear reactor and fuel technology, has closed its upsized Series C-1 financing round of $700m. “We welcome our new investors along our journey to accelerate the development and deployment of advanced nuclear energy and meet the growing demand for reliable, safe and clean energy,” said Dr Kam Ghaffarian, Founder and Executive Chairman of X-energy.
Segra Capital Management, Jane Street, Ares Management funds, Emerson Collective, and others join the previously announced round anchored by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, an affiliate of Citadel Founder and CEO Ken Griffin, affiliates of Ares Management Corporation, NGP, and the University of Michigan. Latham & Watkins LLP acted as legal advisor to X-energy, and Moelis & Company acted as exclusive financial advisor and placement agent.
“We are proud to have gained the additional support from our industry, government, and investment community since X-energy was founded more than 15 years ago, Ghaffarian noted. “We look forward to continuing to advance and scale our technology and realise our vision of fulfilling the growing energy needs of future generations.”
Amazon and X-energy are collaborating to bring more than 5 GW of new power projects online across the US by 2039. The efforts will help meet growing energy demands in key locations through direct project investments to fund development, licensing, and construction, as well as long-term power purchase agreements to help power Amazon’s operations. Further, X-energy and Amazon plan to establish and standardise a deployment and financing model to develop projects in partnership with infrastructure and utility partners.
Proceeds from the financing round will contribute towards completion of X-energy’s reactor design and licensing as well as the first phase of its TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It will also support future projects that use X-energy’s Xe-100 advanced small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).
The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor with a thermal output of 200 MWt or an electrical output of 80 MWe. It can be scaled into a four-pack 320 MWe power plant, fuelled by the company’s proprietary TRISO-X tri-structural isotropic particle fuel. The Xe-100 evolved from both the UK’s Dragon reactor at Winfrith in Dorset and the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project in South Africa.
X-energy was selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE) in 2020 to receive up to $1.2bn in matching funds under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to develop, license, build, and demonstrate an operational advanced reactor and fuel fabrication facility by the end of the decade. X-Energy has since completed the reactor engineering and basic design and is developing a fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge in Tennessee.
X-energy is developing its initial Xe-100 plant at Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site on the Texas Gulf Coast where existing energy and steam assets are set to expire. X-energy says the project is expected to be the first grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor deployed to serve an industrial site in North America, providing the site with power and high-temperature steam.
The Seadrift site encompasses 4,700 acres and manufactures more than 4 billion pounds of materials annually used across a wide variety of applications including food packaging and preservation, footwear, wire and cable insulation, solar cell membranes, and packaging for medical and pharmaceutical products. The site currently relies on gas-fired combustion and steam turbines for the majority of its energy.
Dow and X-Energy signed a joint development agreement in 2024 ear to deploy a four-unit Xe-100 at the site by 2030. The agreement includes up to $50m in funding, up to half of which is eligible through ARDP, and the other half from Dow. Finalisation of the site selection process paves the way for the two companies to prepare and submit a construction permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Construction on the plant is expected to begin in 2026.
