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 vegetation and decrease 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 sort present in nuclear submarines and lots of current energy vegetation.

Earlier this 12 months, Deep Fission inked a take care of information middle developer Endeavor to construct 2 gigawatts of underground reactors. 

As not too long ago 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, primarily 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 worth, the chosen fairness market, and the timing of the transaction — counsel that Deep Fission wasn’t in a position to increase money from new or current shareholders, who first capitalized the corporate with a $4 million examine final 12 months. 

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