Nuclear startup Bluecore Energy raises $50M seed, two months after launch

Bluecore Energy announced Tuesday an oversubscribed $50 million seed round, just months after raising a $10 million pre-seed and emerging from stealth. Founded earlier this year by Kofi Asante, the company builds small modular reactors (SMRs) on floating barges rather than fixed sites, so power can be moved to wherever it’s needed. “The Navy is doing this as we speak, for the last 70 years, and has never had an accident,” Asante said, describing Bluecore’s approach as a smaller version of that technology meant to bring clean power to a site in days rather than years.

Asante said he wasn’t planning to fundraise this year, but calls kept coming after the pre-seed launch. Many of Bluecore’s pre-seed investors — including Slauson & Co., Harlem Capital, and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen — doubled down in the new round, joined by new capital from Collab Capital, Kevin Hart’s HartBeat Ventures, and angel investors from Tesla, Uber, Amazon, and Google. Silverton Partners led the round, which took eight weeks to close.

When Bluecore emerged from stealth in July, it became the first nuclear company headquartered at a major port, the Port of Long Beach. It has since launched two floating barges and struck a partnership with the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Division, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the U.S. Coast Guard; the company is now undergoing NRC and Coast Guard review of its product design, which, if successful, would lead to certification of its floating nuclear power plant. Asante said formal engagement with those agencies began officially in August, after informal talks since the company’s founding.

The new funding will go toward continued product development, regulatory work, nuclear fuel purchases, and hiring. Asante said the biggest challenge ahead is supply chain — securing hardware fast enough to match demand — and that Bluecore has drawn inbound interest from multiple ports, AI data centers, and communities needing clean energy and water. He said the company already has barges and a reactor and is now preparing to order nuclear fuel through a partner at a national nuclear lab.

Why it matters

Bluecore’s barge-based model is a bet that portability, not just reactor size, is what lets nuclear power reach ports and data centers faster than traditional fixed-site projects.