Nuclear startup Hadron Energy to go public in $1.2B deal

[Redator]

Nuclear startup Hadron Energy has announced it will go public on the Nasdaq via a $1.2 billion business combination with GigCapital7 Corp, a Private-to-Public Equity firm. 

The deal will provide approximately $200 million in net proceeds, which will be used to accelerate product development and commercial deployment of Hadron’s technology, it said. The deal is expected to close in Q1 2026. 

The Redwood City, California-based company said it has designed a micro modular reactor (MMR) built on light water reactor technology with an operationally efficient 10-year fueling cycle.

MMRs are miniaturized nuclear power plants being increasingly used in AI data center infrastructure, and can power mining operations by providing a low-carbon source of electricity and heat, replacing diesel generators and reducing emissions. MMRs produce between 1 and 20 megawatts of electric power per 1 module. 

“We’re at a $1.2 billion dollar valuation. We’re excited about the opportunity to service not only data center customers, but also more remote  industrial applications,” Sam Gibson, founder and CEO of Hadron Energy, told MINING.com in an interview. “In the mining industry, there is a lot of interest and very high demand for our product.”

There are currently 94 nuclear reactors operating in the United States across 54 power plants at full scale, variations of light water designs. 

Gibson said the company’s focus is miniaturizing reactors in a mass manufacturable package that can then be distributed to remote applications or data centers.

“We don’t have to have an external water supply,” Gibson said. “And ultimately, we have demand ranging anywhere from 10 megawatts, which is one unit, all the way up to even gigawatt scale deployments, which is 1,000 megawatts plus.”

Hadron’s MMR design. Image supplied.

“Plenty of uranium supply”

Uranium is a crucial source of reliable baseload power as nuclear energy, and the US requires an estimated 32 million pounds of uranium annually for its current nuclear reactors. Energy Fuels’ White Mesa Mill in Utah is the only producing mill in the US.

In 2024, the US purchased 50 million pounds of uranium, but only produced 677,000 pounds, according to the Energy Information Administration.

But Gibson said uranium supply is not currently an issue for the company.

“One of our uranium suppliers has about 1.7 million pounds of uranium ore right now. So the supply is there.” 

Gibson said it comes down to the energy density of uranium and the enrichment, pointing out that typically 5% enriched and below is what’s used in the commercial industry today.

“Our reactor is using slightly higher enrichment, which enables us to have a smaller core. We are primarily focused on reactor development.” 

Hadron is working on the engineering and licensing side to begin producing the reactors at scale, and Gibson said what puts Hadron at the forefront is that there’s still not a licensed microreactor on the market today.

“When it came to incorporating, we had a lot of the groundwork already worked out. So that’s why we’ve been able to make such rapid progress on the regulatory side, on the engineering design side,” he said. 

“Historically, you’ll have reactors that have fueling cycles of about two years, but since we’re using a higher enrichment, that gives our core life a longer life and it enables us to have even a more compact design. Those are really the key innovations we’re working on here. That’s the entire goal – a 24-7 energy producing source.”