Nuclear startup Valar Atomics in talks to raise new funding at $6B valuation

Nuclear startup Valar Atomics is in talks to raise a new round of capital at a valuation of about $6 billion, according to three sources familiar with the company. Sequoia is expected to lead the deal, the people said. The Information first reported the funding discussions, including that the El Segundo, California, startup is raising a $1 billion equity round. Part of that capital has been raised previously at a lower valuation, the people told TechCrunch. Specifically, Valar has raised $450 million, including $340 million in equity and $110 million in debt, at a $2 billion valuation, per a Bloomberg report in March. Sequoia and Valar Atomics declined to comment. The three-year-old company builds small modular nuclear reactors designed to be cheaper and faster to deploy than traditional reactors. Earlier this month, the company showed that its nuclear reactor provided a small amount of power to an Nvidia AI chip. Concurrently with that proof-of-concept demonstration, Valar and Nvidia announced a partnership to explore the development of nuclear energy to power future AI data centers. Valar counts Palmer Luckey, the Anduril founder, and Shyam Sankar, Palantir's chief technology officer, among its backers. The company was founded by Isaiah Taylor.