Charles River Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, has invested in the USD35m series B financing round for TerraPower.
TerraPower is a Washington-based company developing new options for nuclear energy production.
Khosla Ventures also joined in the round for this three-year-old company that counts Intellectual Ventures co-founder Nathan Myhrvold and investor Bill Gates among its supporters.
Izhar Armony (pictured), general partner at Charles River Ventures and TerraPower board member, says nuclear energy is going to play a significant role as one of the few carbon-free sources for baseload power in the future of the US and the world. The US is just one of 30 nations exploring future construction of nuclear reactors.
"A short term approach to investing isn’t going to help achieve the goals many have for a clean-energy future," says Armony. "TerraPower offers a vision for an ideal system and then brings together inspired people with the tools they need to advance reactor designs to transform waste liabilities into assets. The travelling-wave reactor is an incredibly exciting new design that could really advance the nuclear energy field."
TerraPower was formed to advance innovative approaches to nuclear energy that were identified in "invention sessions" at Charles River Ventures’ portfolio company Intellectual Ventures. Invention sessions are multidisciplinary brainstorming events focused on a particular set of issues and possible solutions.
TerraPower is one of the first companies formed specifically to advance inventions created in an Intellectual Ventures invention session.
