Antares Industries
Antares Industries builds transportable fission microreactors up to 1 MW for military bases and remote sites, and raised $470 million in July 2026 after its first reactor reached criticality.
Background
Antares Industries — which also trades as Antares Nuclear — was founded in 2023 by Jordan Bramble, chief executive, and Julia DeWahl, president, and is headquartered at Prairie Avenue in Torrance, California, with additional sites in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Aiken, South Carolina.
Bramble is a systems engineer and physicist whose background includes Northrop Grumman.
The company designs factory-produced, transportable fission microreactors of up to one megawatt, aimed at defence installations, remote industrial operations and space applications.
The product concept is a reactor that ships on a truck bed rather than one built in place — moving nuclear power from a construction project to a manufactured good, which is the same argument that reshaped launch and munitions.
Antares reported that its Mark-0 reactor reached criticality in 2026, an inflection that separates it from the large field of advanced-nuclear companies still working on paper designs and licensing.
Financial footing
- $8M seed (2023)
- $30M Series A (Oct 2024)
- $470M Series C in Jul 2026 ($370M equity + $100M debt) co-led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital
- ~$471M total equity raised
- ~$4.3M in DoD and DOE funding
- Mark-0 reactor reached criticality in 2026
- Backers: Paradigm, Caffeinated Capital, Point72 Ventures, Shine Capital, Industrious Ventures
Antares has raised roughly $471 million in total equity. Disclosed rounds include an $8 million seed in 2023 from Caffeinated Capital, Susa/Humba Ventures, Pathbreaker Ventures, Rogue, Shrug Capital and Uncommon Capital; a $30 million Series A in October 2024 led by Caffeinated Capital and AltCap; and a Series C announced 27 July 2026 reported at $470 million, structured as roughly $370 million in equity plus $100 million in debt, co-led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital with Point72 Ventures, Shine Capital and Industrious Ventures participating.
Government funding is small by comparison: approximately $4.3 million from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy. No valuation has been published, and no revenue figures are disclosed. Headcount is listed at 51 to 200.
Major customers & contracts
Antares has received approximately $4.3 million in funding from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy; no specific service contract or programme award is identified in the sources reviewed here, and no Army contract is confirmed.
Its stated markets are defence installations, remote industrial operations and space power.
Its geography is the clearest signal of intent. Sites at Idaho Falls — adjacent to Idaho National Laboratory, where advanced reactor testing and demonstration happens — and Aiken, South Carolina, near the Savannah River Site, place the company inside the two locations where US government nuclear qualification actually occurs.
That is infrastructure positioning for a regulated customer, not a sales strategy.
Leadership & contact surface
Leadership: Jordan Bramble
Official site: https://antaresindustries.com
Competitive position
Antares sits in a category this directory barely covers. Zeno Power, which builds radioisotope power systems, is the closest tracked peer, and Chariot Defense addresses battlefield power from the opposite end with conventional systems.
In the wider advanced-nuclear field the company competes with a crowded set of small modular reactor developers, including well-funded entrants such as Valar Atomics, and with the incumbent reactor vendors.
Its differentiation is threefold: a small target size — one megawatt rather than the tens or hundreds most SMR developers pursue — a transportable, factory-built form factor, and a reactor that has actually gone critical.
The first two narrow the licensing and engineering problem enough to be plausible on a startup timeline; the third is the discriminator, because advanced nuclear is a field where most companies have never operated hardware.
The binding constraint is not competitive but regulatory. Nuclear licensing timelines are set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy authorisation pathways, and no amount of venture capital shortens them.
Battlefield relevance
No combat use, and none anticipated in the near term — Antares supplies power infrastructure rather than weapons. The military relevance is energy resilience: forward bases and installations currently depend on diesel generators and the fuel convoys that supply them, which are among the most attacked logistics targets in modern conflict.
A megawatt-class reactor that arrives on a truck removes that convoy requirement, which is a survivability argument before it is an energy one.
Sources & verification
- https://newmarketpitch.com/blogs/news/defense-tech-funding-news
- https://alleywatch.com/2026/08/the-weekly-notable-startup-funding-report-8-3-26/
- https://yespress.io/jordan-bramble
- https://oodaloop.com/company-profiles/energy/antares-industries/
- https://www.latimes.com/b2b/industry-lists/top-aerospace-defense-companies/antares
- https://growthstudio.crowell.com/announcement/crowell-represents-antares-industries-in-seed-financing/
- https://antaresindustries.com/leadership-team
- https://tracxn.com/d/companies/antares-industries/__o_lbLS6Q31Xhxw61GhuD7_HYrHoJoVpdpJ8ZlRalXWc
- https://yespress.io/tags/advanced-nuclear