$30M Series A · Lead investor sought
PYROTECH is the molten-salt recycling technology that turns used nuclear fuel back into fuel — safely, on-site, without producing weapons-grade plutonium. Asset-light. Licensing-based. Built for the renaissance that's already here.
The problem
Every gigawatt of nuclear power makes ~25,000 kg of used fuel a year. The global fleet keeps growing. The two ways the industry has to handle it are both broken — and waste is now the gating factor for the nuclear renaissance.
Deep geological disposal runs $300–2,700/kg, buries material that still has value, and hands governments a permanent liability that's politically radioactive. Community opposition delays and cancels reactors before they're built.
Conventional aqueous reprocessing is expensive and complex, can't handle hot fuel, separates pure plutonium (a proliferation problem), and leaves behind highly radioactive liquid waste. Effectively a state monopoly.
The breakthrough · PYRO
PYRO is a direct chemical reduction process developed in Prof. Jinsuo Zhang's lab at Virginia Tech. It recovers uranium and the actinides as fuel — and crucially, never isolates a pure plutonium stream.
Why now · the renaissance
After decades of stagnation, nuclear is being built again at scale: tripling pledges, restarts, and a wave of new reactors driven by AI-era electricity demand. Capacity is the headline. Used fuel is the part nobody has solved — and it grows in lockstep with every gigawatt added.
Hyperscalers and governments are racing to bring reactors online — new builds, SMRs, and restarts of idled plants. Each added gigawatt is ~25,000 kg more used fuel a year that someone is legally obligated to manage.
The U.S. and allied governments have made domestic nuclear capacity and fuel sovereignty firm policy — backed by executive orders, tripling commitments and waste-fund obligations.
The NRC and international bodies are actively friendly to advanced nuclear innovation. Early pre-licensing engagement now lowers downstream approval risk.
The economics
Against a ~$1,300/kg global average for used-fuel management. Cost target anchored to U.S. DOE / Argonne pilot-scale estimates.
The model
Recyclers, utilities and governments carry the manufacturing and operating risk. PYROTECH owns the IP and earns three stacked, recurring fees — a Tesla-style asset-light spread on a global hardware fleet.
A percentage of projected gross margin, paid when a licensee signs. Cash in early, before a single module is built.
15% of actual gross margin, every year, on every kilogram a licensee recycles. Scales with the installed fleet.
$100k per module per year. A per-unit annuity that compounds as modules multiply across sites and countries.
The landscape
The team
A world authority in pyroprocessing and molten-salt systems. He demonstrated the core PYRO process — complete reduction of UO₂ to metallic uranium, no anode, no external power — and holds the trade secrets and know-how behind it.
Delivered and licensed the only operating molten-salt reactor in the world (China, 2011–2018). Led reactor and fuel-recycling licensing with Canada's CNSC. Architected a 500 MW project in Indonesia. Raised and deployed $400M+ for nuclear programs.
A capital-markets bench built for cross-border energy deals: Robert Fernstrom (35 yrs, ex-HSBC & Salomon Brothers energy banker; sovereign & LNG/power advisory), Andrew Hart (20+ yrs energy & resources transactions, East Asia / Middle East; ChemE foundation), and Noah Farbstein (25+ yrs corporate & project finance; ex-Oppenheimer Asia, Salomon; Wharton).
The plan
Most of the work is engineering, IP and partnerships, not concrete and steel. That lets PYROTECH compress the path: patents in 90 days, a complete Phase 1 in 24 months, and licensing revenue while peers are still permitting their first site.
Core IP locked and owned by PYROTECH within 90 days of close.
Engineering design finalized, lab validation done, Korea manufacturing plan set, NRC pre-licensing underway, customer & licensee MOUs signed.
A built, tested system validating performance and the economic model (Phase 2).
First licensees sign and pay — the recurring fee engine starts turning.
Standardized modules deploying across plants and countries worldwide.
The round
Built for investors like you
These are the five kinds of investor we'd most want around this table — chosen for thesis fit, not logo value. If one of them is you, here's the case in a sentence.
Almost no specialist fund actually has a fuel-cycle mandate — yours does, and you sit inside the bodies that frame this exact market. PYROTECH is the asset-light, proliferation-resistant recycling layer the back end of the cycle has been missing. This is squarely your lane, at the stage you most affect outcome.
PYROTECH turns a strategic liability — a quarter-billion kilograms of used fuel — into domestic fuel supply, without separating weapons-usable plutonium. That's energy security and non-proliferation in one process. It's the recycling complement to the reactor bets you already back.
This is the kind of science-rich, patent-defensible thesis you underwrite well: a process already shown in the lab, a clear path to a constructable prototype, and a founder who owns the core invention. The $30M is precisely the technical-and-IP de-risking step before scale capital.
PYROTECH wins on manufacturability — a compact, standardized unit built in Korea and deployed by the thousands. Your edge is taking exactly that kind of hardware from prototype to production line. You'd be underwriting the scale-up curve you know better than anyone.
Your technical diligence and pronuclear LP network make you an ideal co-lead/anchor: you de-risk the deal for generalists and bring sector credibility. For the back-end-of-the-cycle gap in a nuclear portfolio, PYROTECH is the natural fit.
The technology is demonstrated. The team has licensed first-of-a-kind nuclear before. The market is obligated to buy. What's missing is the lead investor who moves first.
Request the data roomDisclaimer: This page is confidential investor material prepared on behalf of PYROTECH and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy securities. Market-opportunity figures (e.g. $8.6B / $195B / $27B pools) are the company's own illustrative model of the addressable market at full adoption, not revenue forecasts; technical, timeline and financial figures are targets and projections subject to development, regulatory approval and execution risk. Investor descriptions reflect the company's view of investor-archetype fit and do not refer to, or imply any relationship with, any specific firm. Independent due diligence is required.