X-Energy Files Draft IPO Registration, Targets Nasdaq Listing for Nuclear Reactors

X-Energy has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch an initial public offering on Nasdaq, aiming to raise roughly $300 million to fund its advanced small modular reactor and nuclear fuel business. The Rockville, Maryland company filed the draft Form S-1 on March 20, 2026, timing the announcement to land the day after signing a major commercial deal and squarely in the middle of what amounts to the most consequential week in its 17-year history.

X-Energy intends to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "XE." The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Jefferies, and Moelis & Company are acting as the lead joint book-running managers for the offering.

Founded in 2009 by Kam Ghaffarian and led by CEO J. Clay Sell, a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy, X-Energy designs advanced small modular nuclear reactors and manufactures specialized nuclear fuel. The company employs approximately 916 people as of March 2026 and reported $109 million in revenue for the 12 months ending December 31, 2025. That revenue figure sits against a backdrop of heavy pre-commercial investment: the company posted a net loss of approximately $390 million, reflecting R&D and pre-commercial spending, with cash and investments of approximately $1.02 billion.

This is not X-Energy's first shot at public markets. X-Energy filed confidentially on November 12, 2025, and before that, the company pursued a SPAC route. In 2022 it entered a merger agreement with Ares Acquisition Corporation, which was terminated in 2023 at a valuation of approximately $2.2 billion. The traditional IPO path represents a cleaner route to liquidity for early backers including Amazon, ARK Invest, Point72, and Ares.

The reactor at the center of the pitch is the Xe-100, a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that generates 80 MWe or 200 MWt per module, with four Xe-100 units configured to provide power and steam at industrial sites. The fuel that runs it, TRISO-X pebble fuel, consists of trillions of tiny uranium kernels triple-coated in carbon and silicon carbide layers. The U.S. Department of Energy has described it as "the most robust nuclear fuel on earth."

On the fuel supply side, X-Energy's Oak Ridge, Tennessee facility, TX-1, received an NRC Special Nuclear Material License in February 2026 and is designed to support initial commercial deployments, with operations targeted to begin in the first half of 2028. Business Wire confirmed the milestone with explicit language: "TRISO-X Receives First-Ever Part 70 HALEU Fuel Fabrication License."

The commercial pipeline backing the IPO story is substantial. X-Energy is advancing a four-unit reactor at Dow's Seadrift Operations site on the Texas Gulf Coast under the ARDP program, which would be the first grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor serving an industrial site in North America. Dow and X-Energy submitted a construction permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2025, with permit issuance anticipated in Q1 2027 and commercial operations targeted in the early 2030s. The Amazon partnership's first project is slated to be at the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington, a planned SMR complex near Richland being codeveloped with Energy Northwest, targeting over 5 GWe of capacity online by 2039.

The deal signed the day before the S-1 announcement may be the most telling signal of where demand is headed. On March 19, X-Energy and Talen Energy Corporation signed a letter of intent to evaluate deploying Xe-100 reactors in Pennsylvania and across the PJM Interconnection market, the regional grid serving much of the eastern United States, with the companies exploring three or more four-unit plants to meet growing energy demand from manufacturing, data centers, and electrification.

X-Energy benefits from the DOE's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which provides a 50/50 cost share of up to $1.2 billion to advance design, licensing, and commercialization of its first plant and fuel facility, and has received approximately $438 million in ARDP reimbursements through December 31, 2025. With the Talen LOI, the Dow permit process, the Amazon pipeline, and an NRC-licensed fuel facility all converging in a single week, the S-1 filing is less a leap of faith than a structured bet on a timeline already in motion.