Two months after emerging from stealth, Port of Long Beach-based Bluecore Energy has raised $50 million in a seed funding round to speed development of its nuclear microreactors for maritime use.
Bluecore Energy founder and chief executive, Kofi Asante, said the funding round announced last week was led by Austin, Texas-based Silverton Partners. Ten other investors also joined, most of whom are venture capital firms. And half of those also invested in the company’s pre-seed round that was shared when the company emerged from stealth in July.
Founded earlier this year, Asante’s Bluecore Energy develops portable nuclear microreactors that could be placed atop floating barges to provide power for ports and other maritime uses, as well as data centers. The company is seeking to take advantage of a resurgence in interest in nuclear power, especially for portable microreactors.
Several microreactor developers are headquartered in the county’s South Bay region, including three participating in a U.S. Department of Energy nuclear reactor development program: Redondo Beach-based Antares Nuclear Inc. and Radiant Industries Inc. and Valar Atomics Inc., both based in El Segundo.
‘Power plant that floats’
Asante and Bluecore have chosen to focus on the maritime market, including ports and any other major power users near coastal waters.
“Nuclear energy at sea is not a new idea,” Assante said in a post announcing the company’s emergence from stealth in July. For example, nuclear reactors have powered U.S. Navy submarines since the mid-1950s.
“Our opportunity is to take lessons from decades of maritime nuclear experience and combine them with modern engineering to build systems for a new generation of commercial applications,” Asante said. “My team and I took nuclear reactor technology that’s been running power plants safely for 70 years, made it smaller, and put it on a barge: a power plant that floats.”
Bluecore’s team includes engineers from Starbase, Texas-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX; Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin Enterprises; Falls Church, Virginia-based Northrop Grumman Corp.; and Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp.
The fledgling company chose the Port of Long Beach as its first target, setting up its headquarters at the port and bringing in its own barge with its prototype microreactor on top. Like many of its larger brethren, Bluecore’s microreactor uses a water-based cooling system and can generate up to 10 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 15,000 single-family homes. That’s somewhat larger than the 1-megawatt microreactors that Antares, Radiant and Valar are developing.
Bluecore Energy appears to be the first nuclear microreactor developer to site its headquarters inside an active port. And officials at the Port of Long Beach have welcomed the company.
“Guided by our new 2050 vision, the Port of Long Beach is preparing for a future defined by electrification, growing energy demand and the transition to zero-emissions operations, which will require hundreds of megawatts of energy,” Noel Hacegaba, the port’s chief executive, said in Bluecore’s July post. “We are excited to welcome Bluecore Energy to the Port of Long Beach and its commitment to developing zero-emissions energy small modular reactor solutions alongside the maritime community.”
Besides Silverton, Bluecore’s seed round investors include View Park/Windsor Hills-based Slauson & Co.; New York-based Harlem Capital Partners; San Francisco-based Precursor Ventures; Karman Ventures and Capital Factory, both based in Austin, Texas; Playa Vista-based Share VC; and Encino-based Hartbeat Ventures.
