Co-founded by a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, Deep Isolation has secured strategic funding from NAC International for its nuclear waste disposal business.
Deep Isolation, a US-based nuclear fuel disposal technology developer co-founded by University of California, (UC) Berkeley faculty, closed a $20m series A round today led by NAC International, a radioactive materials services subsidiary of industrial and engineering firm Hitachi Zosen.
Founded in 2016, Deep Isolation deposits cannisters containing nuclear waste in boreholes penetrated deep beneath the ground using its horizontal drilling technology, a method it claims is safer than existing alternatives.
NAC will assign an as-yet-unnamed representative to Deep Isolation’s board of directors in conjunction with its investment.
Deep Isolation’s co-founders include chief technology officer Richard Muller, a professor emeritus of physics at UC Berkeley.
The company had already closed a seed round sized above $10m in January 2019 with commitments from unnamed individual investors.
Kent Cole, president and CEO of NAC International, which has collaborated with Deep Isolation since 2019, said: “Deep Isolation is leveraging proven horizontal drilling and conveyance technology from the oil and gas industry to develop a patent-protected method for effectively disposing of used nuclear fuel and high-level waste.”
