AIDEA commits $25 million to nuclear startup NuCube as it seeks to go public

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority said Wednesday it has agreed to invest $25 million in a company trying to bring a small nuclear reactor to market.

NuCube Energy, an Idaho Falls startup, wants to build the reactors in a factory and use them to supply electricity and heat to remote Alaska communities and industrial sites. It has not built one. On Oct. 6, it announced the next phase of testing at a Utah energy lab, using a 250-kilowatt induction furnace to supply heat representative of its reactor's, according to a company release filed with the SEC. Its first planned reactor, a research unit at Idaho State University, still needs federal approval before construction, the university says.

AIDEA pointed to the hundreds of small Alaska communities that rely on expensive diesel. In fly-in villages served by the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, fuel alone now costs more than $1 a kilowatt-hour, the cooperative's CEO wrote in a column posted this week.

"Affordable energy is about more than a utility bill," AIDEA Deputy Director Brandon Brefczynski said in the authority's announcement. He said it is about whether families can afford to stay in their communities and whether businesses can afford to grow.

AIDEA also said the benefits depend on successful development of the technology, regulatory approvals, financing and work with communities that would host a reactor. It named no Alaska site or customer.

NuCube was founded in 2023. In a September filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it described itself as pre-revenue, with 10 full-time employees as of June 30. The company has said each reactor could run up to 25 years without refueling. CEO Cristian Rabiti, a nuclear engineer, said in May that he settled on a size of about 1 megawatt after working in Alaska in 2021.

The Idaho State reactor would make heat for experiments rather than power for the grid, and NuCube is aiming for 2029. In April, the Department of Energy picked the project for a program that followed President Donald Trump's 2025 executive orders to speed up reactor testing and licensing, the university said. Idaho State has requested authorization to host the reactor, which the Energy Department would regulate through that program.

On Oct. 19, NuCube signed an agreement with National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan to study using its reactors there, according to an SEC filing. The university hopes to install one by 2031, but that depends on NuCube first reaching commercial operation in the United States, Taiwan's Commercial Times reported in an article Alaska News translated from Chinese using AI. In July, NuCube and Alaska Fund announced a proposed venture to develop and run reactors in Alaska.

AIDEA agreed to buy shares in NuCube, which is trying to go public by merging with Launch Two Acquisition Corp., a company formed for that purpose. Launch Two shareholders redeemed shares worth about $198.6 million this month, according to an SEC filing. The merger requires at least $75 million in net cash after transaction expenses to close, a condition the parties can waive. NuCube said AIDEA's $25 million counts toward it.

AIDEA agreed to pay $9.25 per share, about 14.5% below the $10.82 price used to value NuCube shares in the merger. It also gets warrants allowing it to buy one additional share for every two it purchases, at $11.50 a share within five years, according to terms filed with the SEC.

An investment policy the AIDEA board adopted in April lets Executive Director Randy Ruaro make direct investments in companies with an Alaska connection and calls for quarterly investment reports to the board. The deal was not on the agenda for the board's Oct. 21 meeting.

Disclosure: Matt Larkin, a co-founder of Communities News, Inc., which publishes Alaska News, is the founder and CEO of Alaska Fund which invested in NuCube. Larkin had no role in the assignment, reporting, editing or publication of this story.