Clean tech startup Fluxnium found a way to tap 50,000 years’ worth of nuclear fuel; plus, Hang Ten Systems nabbed another $53m

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1:13That's Framer.com slash tcstartups. Rules and restrictions may apply. The U.S. has ambitious plans to triple the capacity of its nuclear power plants by 2050. But that goal might hit a roadblock if plant operators can't buy fuel at reasonable prices. Prices for yellowcake, a form of unrefined uranium, are up 75 % in the last five years. That's according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Further complicating matters, the U.S. doesn't have significant resources within its borders, unless you consider the ocean. The ocean has over 4 billion metric tons of uranium in it, enough for 50 ,000 years or so.

1:55Jeff Green, founder and CEO of the clean tech Fluxnium, told TechCrunch, it's like a thousand times more than all identified hard rock mines combined. Fluxnium thinks it has solved the problem of how to extract uranium from seawater. Using technology developed at the U.S. Department of Energy, and the company has an approach that could be competitive with existing uranium mines. The startup has been working in stealth until now to develop the new technology. Fluxnium gave TechCrunch an exclusive look at its technology. The startup recently closed a $7 million seed round led by Congruent Ventures with participation from Active Impact Investments and Constellation Energy, which operates the largest nuclear fleet in the U.S.

2:42Flexneum is emerging as the nuclear industry in the U.S. undergoes a renaissance. Tech companies have backed several nuclear startups as they search for new sources of electricity to power their AI data centers. Green's timing is good, but perhaps not surprising. He is a repeat founder, having helped launch Stamps.com back in 1996, desalination startup Nano H2O in 2005, and carbon removal startup 1.5 in 2020. He has a nose for where the world is going, and he thinks uranium presents a pretty big opportunity. While uranium is not rare, as elements go, uranium mines are not plentiful or evenly distributed.

3:27Green says if you're in the West, two-thirds, three-quarters of the world's uranium supply comes from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Namibia, Niger, China. There's geopolitical risk. Those concerns have been bubbling under the surface of the nuclear industry for decades. Green said, now with this new nuclear renaissance, if demand comes the way it's being projected, we are structurally short uranium. But those concerns would evaporate if someone could find way to economically extract uranium from seawater. Fluxium's technology uses specially made polymer fibers that attract the uranium that's dissolved in seawater.

4:08The company licensed the chemistry from the Department of Energy, and it has continued to work on the production and configuration of the fibers themselves. The key has been to increase the surface area of the fibers. When the technology was demonstrated at a national lab, it could extract uranium at more than$200 per pound, which is more than twice the price of Western suppliers today. But by increasing the surface area, Fluxnium has been able to draw more uranium out of the water, bringing those costs down. Much of the costs are wrapped up in manufacturing the fibers and deploying them in the ocean.

4:44Here's how it works. After the material has been made into long braided fibers, they're hauled out to sea and hung off buoys, similar to the way that seaweed is farmed. After 30 to 60 days at sea, they're brought ashore, and the uranium is extracted without any toxic tailings left behind. Each line can be reused several times over. Once the uranium is eluded from the fibers, it is purified into yellow cake. Green said that, then we sell that just as any other mine into the supply chain. None of the components of this process or anything novel. It's all been done in different ways. Our job is to drive cost out of the supply chain, keep working through all the stages of the process to make it as low cost as possible.

5:33Hangten Systems is an AI startup founded by former Emphasis CEO Vishal Sika just four months ago, and the company has expanded its seed funding by another$53 million. This new investment round was closed just five weeks after the initial$32 million seed round was closed. The fresh investment, led by Temasek's early-stage investment platform Zora, takes Hangten's total funding to$85 million. Mayfield, which led the startup's earlier investment, also participated. Other investors include Aramco Ventures, Intel CEO Lip Bhutan, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who is also on its board.

6:18Founded back in May, Hangtan is betting that AI can fundamentally reshape how large companies build and maintain software. The startup advises companies, typically with over$10 billion in annual revenue, on AI strategy and also helps build and modernize software. Sika said that the build part itself has basically become close to zero marginal cost, close to zero time. He argued that AI is shifting the focus of software development from writing code to defining requirements and validating whether systems perform as intended. The thesis appears to be resonating with customers. Within 25 days of the first meeting with one customer, Hang 10 signed a multi-million dollar contract to build a mission-critical software system.

7:05And Sika said he had never seen enterprise deals move that quickly. Hangten is now working with a mix of existing customers and late-stage prospects, spanning 21 major enterprises, with some prospects in the proposal or contract negotiation stage. The startup has secured multiple seven-figure contracts and is pursuing eight-figure deals. Moreover, its customers span the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and include Fresenius Kabi, Saudi Aramco, and Siemens Energy. Sika said the early customer wins prompted Zora to approach Hang 10 about investing, adding that Zora saw an opportunity to introduce the startup to other companies in Temasek's portfolio.

7:45Sika declined to disclose Hang 10's valuation but said the second round of seed funding was a bump up. With the fresh capital, Hang 10 plans to expand its engineering, consulting, and sales teams. The Palo Alto-headquartered startup currently has about 20 to 25 employees across the U.S., the Middle East, and Australia and expects to hire in Europe and India. Hangten enters a crowded market in which AI model developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic are expanding their enterprise offerings, while traditional consulting firms are racing to embed generative AI into their own services. Sika said, enterprises still need trusted partners who are independent of the underlying platform and who work with and solely in the interest of the enterprise.

8:30There will always be room for companies like us. Hangten says its edge lies not in building another AI model, but in adapting AI to the complex software development processes of large enterprises. Now, Hangten's approach is already putting it in competition with traditional systems integrators. Many of the startup's engagements, Zika said, are replacing incumbent providers, though more than half of its current opportunities involve new projects that companies had previously put off. rather than work taken from existing vendors. The company says that Hang 10 can use teams of about two to four people for some projects that might previously have required about 30, although customers or independent third parties still handle final quality checks and certification.

9:16The startup promises customers a tenfold improvement in cost, speed, or a combination of the two. Even in four months of its debut, Hang 10 has received serious acquisition offers from very big companies, Sika told TechCrunch. He declined to identify the prospective buyers. The startup has turned them down for now as it focuses on expanding the business. Before founding Hangten, Sika co-founded enterprise AI startup Vian AI in 2019 after leaving emphasis in 2017. It raised$50 million in seed funding and later raised$140 million in a 2021 round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Now, the startup takes its name from Hang 10, the surfing maneuver in which a surfer rides with all 10 toes over the front of the board.

10:04For Seeka, it reflects the startup's ambition to help enterprises ride the ongoing AI wave, what he called probably the biggest wave of our lives. That's all for now. For the latest in tech news, go to TechCrunch.com.

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