Newcleo, the Franco-Italian advanced nuclear start-up, is racing to take advantage of investor enthusiasm for SMRs and US strategic-fuel access. The company confirmed plans to list on Nasdaq through a SPAC merger that values it at roughly $2.4 billion, with closing targeted for the second half of 2026.
Why the US listing matters
Newcleo's chief executive Stefano Buono has been blunt that European public markets remain too cautious for a deep-tech nuclear story that loses money while it innovates. A US listing gives Newcleo access to a deeper pool of investors comfortable with multi-year capex cycles. Crucially, the company will benefit from a portion of the US government's surplus plutonium stockpiles — a strategic feedstock for the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel its lead-cooled fast reactor consumes.
Inside Newcleo's reactor design
Newcleo is developing a 200 MWe lead-cooled fast SMR fuelled by MOX made from plutonium and depleted uranium. The design is intended to close the nuclear fuel cycle by consuming long-lived actinides that conventional reactors leave behind. A 30 MWe demonstrator is planned at Chinon in France's Loire Valley alongside a fuel-fabrication facility at Nogent-sur-Seine, with first criticality targeted before the end of the decade.
From speculative to investable
The SPAC route is controversial after the wave of 2021-era de-SPACings collapsed, but several advanced-nuclear peers have used it to bridge to commercial scale. Newcleo's listing follows agreements that pair its fuel expertise with US partners; in October 2025 it signed with Oklo to co-develop fuel infrastructure at the Savannah River site under what could be a $2 billion programme, building on the DOE surplus plutonium initiative.
Investors will compare Newcleo's path against US peers such as NuScale and the newly public X-energy, but the European SMR pure-play with a US capital base is genuinely scarce. Buono is betting that scarcity is exactly what Wall Street wants in mid-2026.
Reporting based on coverage from L'Usine Nouvelle, Crypto Briefing, NucNet and World Nuclear News.