Nano Nuclear Energy Inc. Common Stock 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Jay Yu, NANO Nuclear's founder, chairman, and president, James Walker, our CEO, and Jaisun Garcha, our CFO. Please note that today's press release and slide presentation to accompany this webcast are available on our website. Before moving ahead, I'll quickly address forward-looking statements made on this call. As reflected in more detail on slide 2, today's presentation contains forward-looking statements about NANO's future that are made under the safe harbor provisions of the applicable federal securities laws. We caution that actual results, including without limitation the results of NANO's microreactor development activities, our plans for vertical integration, customer acquisition, and other strategies and plans, timelines for achieving goals, and other matters relating to our future operations, may differ materially and adversely from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

Important risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ from those in our forward-looking statements are contained in our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K filed this past December, which you're encouraged to review. The forward-looking information provided today is accurate only as of today, and NANO disclaims any obligation to update any information provided except as required by law. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jay Yu, NANO's founder, chairman, and president.

Thank you, Matt, and thank you to everyone joining the call today. I'd like to begin the call by reminding investors what differentiates NANO Nuclear and why we believe we're well-positioned to capture value in the advanced nuclear industry. We've intentionally built our strategy around six factors we believe will determine commercial success at scale. First is our technology. Kronos is built upon high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology, which has been demonstrated through decades of global deployments. The TRISO fuel used by Kronos also benefits from extensive qualification work under the U.S. DOE's AGR program, contributing to our confidence in building upon mature advanced reactor technology. At the same time, Kronos' enhanced safety profile using helium as coolant and TRISO fuel positions it well for applications requiring co-location with customers, including AI data centers, industrial applications, military installations, and remote mining operations. The second is design maturity and fuel flexibility.

Kronos's high TRL is backed by substantial historic investment over a decade of development. Our confidence in Kronos's design maturity is supported by the NRC's formal acceptance of the University of Illinois's Construction Permit Application for review, making NANO Nuclear the first commercially ready microreactor developer building a full-scale unit and one of only a handful of Generation IV reactor developers to reach this stage. Our reactor is also designed to utilize LEU plus fuel that's commercially available today while maintaining the flexibility to utilize HALEU in the future without redesign once HALEU is available and economically viable. Next is scalability. We believe success will be measured by the ability to manufacture a standardized design economically and at scale. Kronos's small modular architect is intended to support standardized manufacturing and repeatable deployment.

We expect this approach to provide one of the clearest pathways to benefit from new expedited licensing pathways, including Part 53 and proposed Part 57, shortened deployment schedules, and economies of scale. Fourth is commercialization. Our first full-scale prototype development at the University of Illinois is advancing through formal NRC licensing with a clear pathway towards first power around 2030. Our commercial pipeline also continues to grow. We recently completed a feasibility study assessing the potential to deploy up to 1 gigawatt of power with BaRupOn. At the same time, we are advancing discussions with potential strategic collaborator and customer advancing planned gigawatt scale data centers in the U.S. and internationally. These discussions continue to progress, and we see a potential to soon reach an initial framework identifying NANO Nuclear as their preferred nuclear technology provider.

In parallel, we're exploring strategic alignment mechanisms, which could include milestone-based investments tied to defined commercial and project development milestones we believe would drive meaningful value for shareholders. This proposed structure is designed to align long-term interests and incentivize our joint success. Separately, we are advancing discussions with nuclear power project developer and an AI infrastructure company to jointly evaluate several projects. Lastly, we're also seeing strong interest from earlier-stage discussions with potential defense, mining, and industrial customers. We believe these opportunities provide visibility into multiple gigawatts of potential commercial deployments. Next is vertical integration. We believe one of the greatest challenges facing the advanced nuclear industry over the coming decade will be execution across a broader nuclear fuel cycle, which is why we're strategically focused on expanding our capabilities in that area.

Our recently announced acquisition of Secured Transportation Services, or STS, has accelerated our progress by providing the ability to transport nuclear fuel and spent fuel. Our team has already identified opportunities to leverage STS's specialized expertise to de-risk Kronos' advancement and our expansion across the fuel cycle. Equally as important, STS has demonstrated a history of profitability. Our team is excited for several significant opportunities to grow the business organically, as well as through an additional M&A opportunity currently under evaluation. We also continue to advance M&A and partnership discussions targeting fuel facility assets to further de-risk the nuclear fuel cycle. Lastly, execution requires both capital and the right team. We ended the quarter with approximately $580 million of liquidity, providing what we believe is one of the strongest balance sheets among advanced reactor developers.

Our strong financial position provides the financial flexibility to advance our first deployment, while also pursuing strategic acquisitions and partnerships across the nuclear fuel cycle. Equally as important, we have assembled an experienced team from the DOE, the NRC, U.S. National Labs, the U.S. military, and advanced reactor developers. Our team has grown significantly over the past year, with our headcount increasing to 85 employees and contractors as of the end of our third quarter, from 31 one year prior, and we have expectations for significant growth. We believe this combination of technology, financial strength, and industry experience has built one of the industry's strongest foundations for long-term value creation. Our team looks forward to additional progress and remains excited for both short and long-term opportunities to create further value for shareholders.

With that, I will turn over the call to our CEO, James Walker, who will provide additional details on our progress and recent developments.

Thank you, Jay. NANO Nuclear has established a strong foundation within the advanced nuclear industry, and we continued converting that foundation into tangible execution during the third quarter. In May, the NRC formally accepted for review the Construction Permit Application for the deployment of the Kronos MMR at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, initiating formal review activities. The NRC subsequently announced its expectation to complete its environmental assessment in Q1 2027 and its safety evaluation in Q3 2027. These projected milestones remain consistent with our expectation for the review process to complete in 2027, providing the opportunity to begin initial construction activities in the second half of 2027. In parallel, we are advancing several critical engineering work streams. We recently announced progress with an engineering collaboration with Fortil, an internationally recognized engineering and consulting firm, to advance Kronos' fuel handling and storage system.

This system is an important element of both our first deployment and our broader commercialization of the platform. We are also advancing an engineering collaboration with another globally recognized engineering firm to advance Kronos' primary helium circulator. This firm has decades of experience supporting gas-cooled nuclear reactor programs, and this collaboration has now advanced into the detailed design phase. Together, these advancements reflect progress across several critical path work streams. They are helping us mature key reactor subsystems, reduce first-of-a-kind execution risk, and establish repeatable designs for future standardized commercial deployments. Another significant area of progress during the quarter was the continued expansion of our vertically integrated nuclear platform. As Jay highlighted, we completed the acquisition of STS in May. STS is a globally operating nuclear logistics, transportation, and services company with a history of profitability.

With more than 20 years of experience supporting the movement of radioactive and nuclear materials, STS supports both commercial nuclear customers and critical missions for the U.S. DOE and NNSA. By bringing these capabilities in-house, we can reduce reliance on third-party providers, accelerate our expansion across several aspects of the fuel cycle, and accelerate future reactor deployments. At the same time, we have made strong progress advancing several synergistic acquisition and partnership opportunities across the nuclear fuel cycle. These include an additional fuel transportation business and nuclear fuel facility assets. We see potential for more than one announcement in the coming months, subject to further diligence and closing conditions, with one position to contribute revenue upon closing, and another offering more meaningful revenue potential in or around the 2030 timeframe. The third key area of progress came from the expansion of Kronos' commercial pipeline.

During the quarter, we continued progressing our deployment opportunity with BaRupOn by completing the previously announced feasibility study, which evaluated a phased deployment of up to 1 gigawatt of Kronos MMR capacity. We view this as an important milestone, and we are advancing discussions towards initiation of the NRC licensing process. We are concurrently advancing discussions towards an initial framework with a potential strategic collaborator and customer to support their planned multi-gigawatt pipeline of data center projects. If finalized, the framework could position NANO Nuclear as the preferred nuclear technology provider. While terms remain under discussion, we believe this framework and future collaboration could significantly strengthen our path towards commercialization by aligning NANO Nuclear with an experienced infrastructure developer with a strong track record of developing, financing, and executing large-scale projects.