TerraPower
Develops advanced nuclear reactors like Natrium for clean energy and isotopes for medical applications.
Website: https://www.terrapower.com/
Cover Block
PUBLIC
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | TerraPower |
| Tagline | Develops advanced nuclear reactors like Natrium for clean energy and isotopes for medical applications. |
| Headquarters | Bellevue, Washington, USA |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Stage | Growth / Late Stage |
| Business Model | B2B |
| Industry | Deeptech (Advanced Nuclear) |
| Technology Type | Hardware |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Repeat Founder |
| Funding Label | $100M+ |
| Total Disclosed | ~$650,000,000 (most recent round) |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://www.terrapower.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/terrapower
- Careers: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/terrapowerllc
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
TerraPower is a Bellevue, Washington advanced-reactor developer building the Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor and a parallel medical-isotopes business, and it deserves investor attention now because it is the first U.S. advanced reactor company to receive a Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction permit for a utility-scale plant [Department of Energy, 2025]. Founded in 2006 by Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold and John Gilleland, the company has spent nearly two decades moving a non-light-water reactor design through federal review, a path most of its peers are still early in [Wikipedia]. The Natrium product, co-developed commercially with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, pairs a 345 MWe sodium-cooled reactor with a molten-salt energy storage system intended to flex output up to 500 MWe to follow renewables on the grid [TerraPower, October 2025]. Leadership combines deep nuclear engineering experience (CTO and co-founder John Gilleland) with utility-program execution under President and CEO Chris Levesque [TerraPower; Craft.co]. The 2024 capital raise of approximately $650 million, with participation from Nvidia's NVentures, HD Hyundai and SK Group alongside Bill Gates, ties the company to the AI-power thesis that has reshaped energy demand forecasts over the last 24 months [Crunchbase News; ESG Today]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the items to watch are construction milestones at the Kemmerer, Wyoming demonstration plant, progress on the UK Generic Design Assessment for international deployment, and conversion of the announced Meta agreement for up to eight Natrium units into firm orders [World Nuclear News; TerraPower].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Department of Energy, Crunchbase News, and TerraPower primary sources.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Growth / Late Stage |
| Business Model | B2B (utility and hyperscaler offtake) |
| Industry / Vertical | Deeptech, Advanced Nuclear Energy |
| Technology Type | Hardware (sodium-cooled fast reactor + molten salt storage) |
| Geography | North America (HQ), with UK regulatory entry |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale, capital-intensive |
| Founding Team | Repeat Founder (Gates, Myhrvold, Gilleland) |
| Funding | $100M+ (~$650M latest round) |
Company Overview
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TerraPower was incorporated in 2006 as an Intellectual Ventures spinout, with Bill Gates as chair, Nathan Myhrvold as co-founder, and nuclear physicist John Gilleland leading the technical effort [Wikipedia; PitchBook, 2026]. The original concept was a traveling-wave reactor designed to run on depleted uranium, a thesis the company later de-emphasized in favor of the sodium-cooled fast reactor architecture that became Natrium. The company is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and operates as TerraPower, LLC [Wikipedia].
The modern commercial chapter begins in 2020, when the U.S. Department of Energy selected Natrium for its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, and continues through the 2021 commercial launch of the Natrium product with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy as the design-and-construction partner [TerraPower]. In 2021, TerraPower and PacifiCorp announced Kemmerer, Wyoming as the demonstration site, replacing a retiring coal plant, and later agreed to study up to five additional commercial units by 2035 [TerraPower]. Site work began in 2024 for non-nuclear infrastructure ahead of NRC approval.
The most recent milestones are regulatory. The NRC completed its final safety evaluation for the Kemmerer Unit 1 construction permit application in 2025 and issued the construction permit shortly after, making Natrium the first non-light-water commercial advanced reactor to clear that bar in the United States [ANS Nuclear Newswire, 2025; Department of Energy, 2025]. The Wyoming Industrial Siting Council subsequently granted approval for construction and operations outside NRC jurisdiction [ANS Nuclear Newswire, 2026]. Commercial operation at Kemmerer is targeted for the early 2030s, with the company publicly citing 2030 as a planning date and outside critics noting a 2032 commercial reactor target [TerraPower, October 2025; E&E News by POLITICO].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by TerraPower, Wikipedia, ANS Nuclear Newswire, and Department of Energy.
Product and Technology
MIXED
The core product is the Natrium reactor and integrated energy system, a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled with a molten salt thermal storage loop that allows the plant to dispatch up to 500 MWe for several hours when grid demand or renewables shortfall calls for it [TerraPower; World Nuclear News]. Sodium as a coolant operates at near-atmospheric pressure, which the company and GE Hitachi argue simplifies several safety systems relative to pressurized light-water reactors.
Beyond power generation, TerraPower runs a separate Isotopes business developing medical isotopes for cancer treatment, including actinium-225 for targeted alpha therapy [TerraPower]. The Isotopes program is operationally independent of Natrium and addresses a much smaller but higher-margin market in radiopharmaceuticals. A second reactor program, the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment with Southern Company at Idaho National Laboratory, targets demonstration of the world's first fast-spectrum salt reactor and represents a longer-dated technology bet [TerraPower].
On the deployment side, the public roadmap includes the Kemmerer demonstration plant in Wyoming with operations targeted for 2030, an agreement with Evergy and the State of Kansas to explore deployment, a PacifiCorp study of up to five additional units by 2035, and a 2025 agreement with Meta covering early development for two Natrium units with rights for up to six additional plants to support data center load [TerraPower; TerraPower]. Open engineering roles posted on Greenhouse, including Principal Fuel Fabrication Engineer, Nuclear Security Systems Resident Engineer, and Quality Assurance Manager (USO), suggest active hiring across fuel, site security, and quality functions consistent with a company entering construction (inferred from job postings).
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by TerraPower, World Nuclear News, and Greenhouse postings.
Market Research and Opportunity
PUBLIC
Advanced nuclear has moved from a perpetual "next decade" story to an active procurement category, driven primarily by hyperscaler power demand and state-level decarbonization mandates.
The most concrete demand signal in TerraPower's own portfolio is the reported $3.5 billion 10-year HALEU offtake commitment, which functions as both a supply hedge and a directional indicator of the fuel-cycle revenue attached to a fleet build [LinkedIn - Nick Lawson]. Layered on top, the Meta agreement for up to eight Natrium plants and the PacifiCorp study covering up to five additional units past the Kemmerer demonstration imply a forward pipeline well into the double-digit-unit range if conversion holds [TerraPower; TerraPower].
| Sizing Anchor | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| HALEU offtake (10 yr) | $3.5B | [LinkedIn - Nick Lawson] |
| Kemmerer demo permanent jobs | 250 | [Business Wyoming] |
| Meta agreement scope | up to 8 Natrium plants | [TerraPower] |
| PacifiCorp study scope | up to 5 additional units by 2035 | [TerraPower] |
The table reads as a rough demand stack rather than a TAM: even partial conversion of the Meta and PacifiCorp pipelines, combined with the Evergy and Kansas exploration agreement, would represent a meaningful share of the announced U.S. advanced-reactor pipeline this decade [TerraPower].
The demand drivers are easy to enumerate and harder to dispute. AI data center load growth has pushed hyperscalers from renewable PPAs into firm-power procurement, with Meta's agreement standing alongside parallel nuclear deals announced across the sector. Coal plant retirements, particularly in Wyoming and Kansas, create siting opportunities with existing transmission, workforce and community familiarity with thermal generation, which is precisely the model Kemmerer follows. Federal policy under the Inflation Reduction Act and the ADVANCE Act has improved the production tax credit picture for new nuclear and streamlined certain NRC processes.
Regulatory and macro forces cut both ways. The NRC construction permit at Kemmerer is a genuine de-risking event for the asset class, but Natrium still requires an operating license before commercial power production, and the sodium coolant choice remains contested in some safety analyses [The Boston Times, 2026]. The UK Generic Design Assessment entry opens an international pathway but adds a multi-year regulatory process [World Nuclear News]. HALEU supply, while hedged by the offtake, depends on a domestic enrichment buildout that is itself capital-constrained.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Multiple confirmed contract data points; no third-party TAM cited in available sources.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
TerraPower competes inside a small set of advanced-reactor developers chasing utility and hyperscaler offtake, and its current edge is regulatory progress rather than reactor novelty.
The competitive map has three layers. The first is direct advanced-reactor peers: small modular and non-light-water developers pursuing similar utility customers and similar federal support. NuScale Power has the only NRC-certified small modular reactor design in the United States but saw its UAMPS Carbon Free Power Project cancelled, which reset its commercial timeline. X-energy is developing a high-temperature gas reactor with Dow as an industrial offtaker and has its own Amazon-backed data center deal. Oklo, now public, is pursuing micro-reactors with a build-own-operate model and has its own hyperscaler relationships. Kairos Power is building a fluoride-salt-cooled demonstration with a Google power agreement. Each is at a different point in NRC review, and each is targeting a slightly different load profile.
The second layer is incumbent light-water reactor vendors and operators: Westinghouse with the AP1000, GE Hitachi with the BWRX-300 small modular reactor (notably, the same GE Hitachi that is TerraPower's commercial partner on Natrium), and the operating utilities themselves who could choose to extend existing nuclear assets or restart retired units rather than commit to a first-of-a-kind design. The 2024 announcement of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 restart for Microsoft is a reminder that restart economics are now a real substitute for new build on hyperscaler timelines.
The third layer is non-nuclear firm power: gas with carbon capture, geothermal (including next-generation enhanced geothermal players), and very-large-scale storage paired with renewables. For a hyperscaler in 2030, any of these could plausibly fill the same role Natrium is being procured for.
Where TerraPower has a defensible edge today, the evidence points to three things: the NRC construction permit at Kemmerer, which no other non-light-water U.S. developer holds [Department of Energy, 2025]; the GE Hitachi commercial partnership, which provides a credible EPC and supply chain answer that pure-play startups lack; and the depth of capital, with Bill Gates as a patient anchor investor and the 2024 round bringing Nvidia, HD Hyundai and SK Group onto the cap table [Crunchbase News]. The durability of these edges is mixed: the regulatory lead is genuinely hard to replicate, the EPC partnership could in principle be matched, and the capital advantage narrows as competitors raise their own hyperscaler-backed rounds.
Where TerraPower is most exposed is schedule risk against substitutes that can deliver power earlier. Reactor restarts and gas-with-CCS can be online before 2030; Natrium's first commercial electrons are targeted for the early 2030s. If a hyperscaler needs firm clean power before then, TerraPower cannot serve that window. The most plausible 18-month competitive scenario: TerraPower wins if Kemmerer construction stays on schedule and the Meta deal converts to a firm order for two units, locking in a hyperscaler reference customer; TerraPower loses ground if a peer (most likely X-energy or Kairos) closes a comparable hyperscaler deal with an earlier in-service date and reframes the category around faster-to-power designs.
Opportunity
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If execution holds, TerraPower has a credible path to becoming the default Western advanced-reactor platform for the AI-power era.
The headline opportunity. The single largest outcome is that Natrium becomes the reference design for utility-scale advanced nuclear in the United States, with a fleet measured in dozens of units across utility and hyperscaler customers by the late 2030s. The cited evidence makes this reachable rather than aspirational because three of the hardest gates have already moved: NRC construction permit issued at Kemmerer [Department of Energy, 2025], Wyoming siting approval granted [ANS Nuclear Newswire, 2026], and a named hyperscaler (Meta) under agreement for up to eight units [TerraPower]. No other non-light-water U.S. advanced reactor developer can point to all three at this date. The HALEU offtake at $3.5 billion further suggests TerraPower is provisioning for a fleet rather than a single demonstration [LinkedIn - Nick Lawson].
Growth scenarios.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperscaler standard | Meta agreement converts to firm orders, additional hyperscalers follow Natrium as their reactor of choice for new data center campuses | Firm order for first two Meta Natrium units | Meta agreement already covers up to 8 units with rights for additional plants [TerraPower] |
| Utility fleet build | PacifiCorp commits to additional commercial units beyond Kemmerer; Evergy and Kansas convert exploration into a firm site | Kemmerer Unit 1 commissioning on or near schedule | PacifiCorp study covers up to 5 additional units by 2035 [TerraPower]; Evergy MOU active [TerraPower] |
| International export | UK Generic Design Assessment clears Natrium for British deployment, opening allied markets | Successful GDA milestones | Natrium has formally entered the UK GDA process [World Nuclear News]; SK Group on cap table provides Korean optionality [Crunchbase News] |
What compounding looks like. Advanced nuclear flywheels are slow but unusually durable once they start turning. The first compounding loop is regulatory: a completed NRC construction permit and operating license materially shortens review for subsequent units of the same design, which is why first-of-a-kind matters so much in this category. The second is supply chain: the HALEU offtake, the GE Hitachi partnership and the sodium component supplier base all become more economic per unit as the fleet grows. The third is customer reference: a single operating Natrium plant with a hyperscaler nameplate (Meta) on the offtake would meaningfully lower the perceived risk for the next utility procurement committee. There is early evidence the flywheel is starting in the form of the Meta agreement layered on top of PacifiCorp and Evergy [TerraPower; TerraPower].
The size of the win. A useful comparable is Westinghouse, which was acquired out of bankruptcy by Brookfield in 2018 and later sold in 2023 to a Cameco-Brookfield consortium at an enterprise value reported around $7.9 billion, despite carrying a troubled AP1000 history. A successful TerraPower with a multi-unit Natrium order book and an operating reference plant would not be a distressed asset; it would be the only Western advanced reactor company with a fleet in build at that point. If the hyperscaler standard scenario plays out and Natrium becomes the default firm clean power solution for AI infrastructure, the platform value sits well above traditional reactor vendor multiples (scenario, not a forecast). Even a partial outcome, the utility fleet build alone, would justify a valuation materially above the implied post-money of the 2024 round.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Department of Energy, TerraPower, ANS Nuclear Newswire, and World Nuclear News.
Sources
PUBLIC
[TerraPower] TerraPower | Natrium Nuclear Energy | Isotopes Cancer Treatment | https://www.terrapower.com/
[TerraPower] About TerraPower | https://www.terrapower.com/about/
[TerraPower, October 2025] News | https://www.terrapower.com/news
[TerraPower] TerraPower Natrium | Advanced Nuclear Energy | https://www.terrapower.com/natrium/
[TerraPower] TerraPower Isotopes | Collaborative Innovation in Nuclear Medicine | https://www.terrapower.com/isotopes/
[TerraPower] TerraPower and Meta Enter Agreement for 8 Natrium Advanced Nuclear Plants | https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-announces-deal-with-meta
[TerraPower] Wyoming Nuclear Energy Milestones | https://www.terrapower.com/wyoming/
[TerraPower] TerraPower and PacifiCorp Announce Efforts to Expand Natrium Technology Deployment | https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-and-pacificorp-announce-efforts-to-expand-natrium-technology-deployment/
[TerraPower] TerraPower, Evergy and the State of Kansas announce agreement to explore advanced nuclear energy deployment | https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-evergy-and-kansas-announce-agreement-to-explore-advanced-nuclear-energy-deployment
[TerraPower] TerraPower and Southern Company to demonstrate the world's first fast-spectrum salt reactor at Idaho National Laboratory | https://www.terrapower.com/southern-terrapower-mcre-agreement/
[TerraPower] TerraPower and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Introduce Commercial Natrium Power Production and Storage System | https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-and-ge-hitachi-nuclear-energy-launch-natrium-technology/
[Wikipedia] TerraPower - Wikipedia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
[Crunchbase] TerraPower - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/terrapower
[Crunchbase News] Bill Gates-Founded Nuclear Energy Startup Raises $650M From Nvidia's VC Arm, Others | https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/nuclear-terrapower-raise-nvda-gates/
[ESG Today] Nvidia Backs $650 Million Capital Raise for Bill Gates' Nuclear Tech Company TerraPower | https://www.esgtoday.com/nvidia-backs-650-million-capital-raise-for-bill-gates-nuclear-tech-company-terrapower/
[Scientific American] Bill Gates-backed nuclear start-up TerraPower just got cleared to start building its first power plant | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bill-gates-backed-nuclear-startup-terrapower-just-got-cleared-to-start/
[E&E News by POLITICO] Nuclear startup TerraPower is moving fast. Some say too fast. | https://www.eenews.net/articles/nuclear-startup-terrapower-is-moving-fast-some-say-too-fast/
[World Nuclear News] TerraPower's Natrium reactor enters UK GDA process | https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/terrapowers-natrium-reactor-enters-uk-gda-process
[Utility Dive] NRC approves construction of advanced nuclear reactor in Wyoming | https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrc-approves-terrapower-project-first-utility-scale-advanced-nu/813851/
[TechCrunch, March 2026] Bill Gates' TerraPower gets approval to build new nuclear reactor | https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/06/bill-gates-terrapower-gets-approval-to-build-new-nuclear-reactor/
[PitchBook, 2026] TerraPower 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/43074-28
[LinkedIn] TerraPower | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/terrapower
[LinkedIn] Nick Lawson - LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-lawson-bb851454/
[Greenhouse.io / TerraPower] Jobs at TerraPower LLC | https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/terrapowerllc
Articles about TerraPower
- TerraPower Is Pouring Sodium-Cooled Concrete in a Wyoming Coal Town — With NRC permits in hand, a $3.5B HALEU offtake, and a Meta deal for eight reactors, the Bill Gates-founded company moves from PowerPoint to pour.