Nuclear startup Deep Fission goes public in a curious SPAC

Nuclear startup Deep Fission introduced Monday that it has gone public in a reverse merger, netting the corporate $30 million.

No, it’s not 2021.

The startup is proposing to construct small, cylindrical nuclear energy crops and lower them into 30-inch diameter holes drilled one mile down into the Earth. By burying the reactors, the corporate hopes to resolve a number of issues that plague present reactors, together with issues over meltdowns and potential terrorist assaults.

Deep Fission’s 15-megawatt reactors are cooled utilizing pressurized water, the identical kind present in nuclear submarines and plenty of present energy crops.

Earlier this yr, Deep Fission inked a take care of knowledge heart developer Endeavor to construct 2 gigawatts of underground reactors. 

As just lately as April, the startup had been attempting to raise a $15 million seed spherical. In August, Deep Fission and 9 different nuclear fission startups had been chosen to be part of the Division of Power’s Reactor Pilot Program, basically a streamlined allowing course of.

Below the phrases of the reverse merger with four-year-old Surfside Acquisition Inc., the providing was priced at $3 per share, under the customary $10 that different SPACs goal. The brand new entity will retain the Deep Fission identify, and although its shares aren’t but buying and selling, it says it intends to cite on the OTCQB.

The circumstances across the SPAC — the share value, the chosen fairness market, and the timing of the transaction — counsel that Deep Fission wasn’t capable of increase money from new or present shareholders, who first capitalized the corporate with a $4 million examine final yr. 

The proceeds of the merger give the startup a bit extra runway than its ill-fated seed spherical would have, nevertheless it additionally imposes SEC reporting prices for what is probably going a small firm working in a really costly sector. Deep Fission is hoping to begin its first reactor by July 2026.