Antares just closed a massive $470M Series C, was welcomed to the Oval Office by President Trump to celebrate becoming the first startup to achieve reactor criticality under the Department of Energy’s reactor pilot program, and is now racing toward delivering the first commercial microreactors to the U.S. military. Just three years after being founded, the company expects to surpass $1B in defense contracts while attempting to restart America’s nuclear industrial base.
CEO Jordan Bramble joins Valley of Depth to unpack what it actually took to build and operate a nuclear reactor in under a year, why Antares believes the military (not hyperscale data centers) is the fastest path to commercial nuclear power, and how microreactors could fundamentally reshape everything from missile defense and remote military installations to space exploration.
We also cover:
- Why achieving reactor criticality is a historic milestone for American nuclear energy
- How Antares compressed decades of nuclear development into a startup timeline
- Why the company chose defense as its beachhead market instead of AI data centers
- The manufacturing, regulatory, and supply chain strategy behind scaling microreactors
- How nuclear power could enable Golden Dome, space infrastructure, and the next era of national security
• Chapters •
00:00 – Trailer
00:54 – Jordan at the White House
02:57 – What does criticality mean?
04:29 – How hard is reaching criticality?
08:48 – What $600M in fundraising will allow Antares to do
09:58 – How did Antares get to criticality first?
12:55 – How the government’s approach to nuclear has changed since Jordan’s time at the Office of Management & Budget
15:25 – How small modular reactors fit in the nuclear tech landscape
19:02 – Space-based civilian use cases for nuclear
20:57 – Antares’s approach to fuel availability and supply chains
25:56 – Electricity in 2027
27:14 – Regulatory hurdles
30:12 – The production line Antares is building
31:33 – The road to 30 reactors a month
33:22 – The data center component
37:22 – Is it just a coincidence that 4 companies reached criticality by the July 4th deadline?
39:48 – How would an investor know if a nuclear company is on the right path?
43:09 – What would Jordan have done differently with Antares?
44:36 – What will Jordan be most proud of about Antares when he’s 80?
• Show notes •
Antares’ website — https://antaresindustries.com/
Jordan’s socials — https://twitter.com/jordanbramble
Mo’s socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear / https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/
• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them.
Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), Decoding Bio (biotech) and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
- Payload: www.payloadspace.com
- Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
- Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
- Decoding Bio: www.decodingbio.com