Project Omega, a Newport, R.I., nuclear startup, raised $80 million in a Series A round led by B Capital, the company said in a November 9, 2026 announcement. It plans to turn spent reactor fuel into isotope power systems and recycled feedstock.
The company is stepping into a conspicuous gap. No commercial reprocessing facilities currently operate in the United States, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's reprocessing page, and the public materials reviewed do not document a commercial-scale demonstration of Project Omega's process.
The Round and Its Backers
645 Ventures and noa also took part, according to 645 Ventures' portfolio page and noa's public LinkedIn feed. 645 Ventures names Vardan Gattani as its deal lead. Axios Pro's Alan Neuhauser reported the financing as an exclusive on November 9, the same day the company announced the round.
B Capital laid out its investment rationale the following day. The post was written by Howard Morgan, Jeff Johnson, Gabe Greenbaum, Karly Wentz, Patrick Harmon, Nate Johnson and Eric Brook.
Neither the announcement nor the other materials reviewed disclosed a valuation, so none is reported here. Quotes from the company or its investors about the round were also not identified in the reviewed materials, though that review may not be exhaustive.
What Project Omega Says It Does
The company's website lists strontium-90, americium-241, uranium and transuranics (elements heavier than uranium) among the materials it intends to recover from used fuel. These remain company claims. Axios Pro's preview described the startup's work as battery-like power systems built from spent nuclear fuel.
Its team page lists Staff Sheehan, PhD, as CEO and co-founder. Yale Ventures identifies him as Stafford W. Sheehan, who earned a master's degree in 2013 and a Ph.D. in 2016 at Yale.
According to the November 9 announcement, Project Omega has an office in Hailey, Idaho, and a cold laboratory in Fall River, Massachusetts. Neither is described as an operating commercial spent-fuel refinery. The company's LinkedIn profile lists 11 to 50 employees, though that range is not an audited payroll count, and the profile still gives Washington, DC, as its location.
A Short Track Record
The startup came out of stealth with a Business Wire release on February 11, 2026. The November announcement calls that "eight months" earlier, though by the calendar it is closer to nine.
On April 2, 2026, the company and Idaho National Laboratory announced an ARPA-E award tied to used-fuel recycling. In June 2026, a Business Wire release described a $3.37 million DARPA "Rads to Watts" contract awarded to Morgan State University and a multi-organization team working on nuclear micro-power systems. The materials reviewed do not detail Project Omega's role in that effort.
Then, on October 20, 2026, Charter Space announced a partnership with the company, which Axios covered as a spacecraft-power collaboration.
Technical and Regulatory Hurdles
Reprocessing does not erase the waste problem. The NRC says high-level waste remains after reusable isotopes are extracted, so disposal obligations persist.
A 2023 report from the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry research group, flagged pyroprocessing challenges in throughput, product purification, monitoring and material accountancy. Pyroprocessing is a high-temperature method of separating materials in used fuel. The report was a general technology assessment rather than a test of Omega's process.
Competitors and Federal Interest
Oklo and Curio also work in recycling and fuel supply, according to company and Department of Energy materials. Their businesses and technology platforms are not identical to Project Omega's. Curio announced an additional $2.5 million award on August 13, 2026, and the Department of Energy announced $19 million for used-fuel recycling research on February 5, 2026.
What Comes Next
A timeline for a commercial facility is not established in the materials reviewed. For now, its public footprint is a cold lab in Massachusetts, an office in Idaho, and a set of federal and commercial partners gathered around a technology that has yet to prove itself at scale.
