NuScale Power has secured a $10 million investment, providing another boost to its pending SPAC merger.
The sustainability-minded San Francisco-based fund SailingStone Capital Partners committed the additional private investment in public equity — known as “PIPE” — Portland-based NuScale said Tuesday.
“This additional commitment further solidifies our already strong financial position as we prepare to become a public company,” NuScale CEO John Hopkins said in a statement.
The deal now has $221 million in PIPE, well above the $200 million required to close. Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., NuScale’s SPAC partner, is bringing $232 million into the deal, but its shareholders can redeem their shares for full value before closing.
NuScale and Spring Valley announced their deal in December. Since then, venture support for nuclear power has appeared to grow amid concerns about reliance on fuel supplies from Russia.
“The war galvanized a sentiment which has been building in recent years in the startup world, where billionaires including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have opened their wallets to back next-generation nuclear companies,” Bloomberg reported last week.
NuScale, majority-owned by Fluor Corp. (NYSE: FLR), has designed the first small modular reactor to receive a final safety evaluation report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company says it expects the SPAC merger, which would take it public on Nasdaq with the ticker symbol SMR, to close before the end of the second quarter.
