Why We Invested In Project Omega

At Pace Ventures, we invest in founders building the picks and shovels of the next industrial revolution. That's why we're thrilled to announce our investment in Project Omega, a nuclear battery company with integrated spent fuel reprocessing technology, emerging from stealth today with $12 million in seed funding.

We've been deeply excited about nuclear energy for years. The direction of travel is clear: nuclear is back on the agenda worldwide, and the countries that master the full fuel cycle will hold the cards on energy sovereignty for the next decades.

We watched as new reactor designs and the SMR wave captured the industry's imagination and billions of dollars in investment. But we kept coming back to a question that few seemed to be asking: even if these next-generation reactors get approved and built, where is the fuel going to come from? And what happens to the waste they produce?

Without answering these questions, nuclear cannot scale. Not in the U.S., not in Europe, not anywhere. Project Omega is built to solve this.

The Opportunity: A 100,000-Ton Elephant in the Room

We are in a new nuclear age. Governments and industry are turning to nuclear power to meet surging electricity demand driven by AI, data centers, and electrification. Yet this expansion is happening without a credible plan for the fuel it needs or the waste it creates.

This is not just an American problem. Globally, some 400,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel have accumulated, with over 95,000 tons in the U.S. alone, according to the Department of Energy. This spent fuel still contains over 90% of its original energy, yet almost no country has figured out how to reprocess it at scale, economically, and safely.

France, through Orano, operates the most advanced reprocessing facilities in the world, but the program is heavily government-backed, and La Hague cost ~$20 billion to build. China was co-developing a major facility with Orano before that partnership fell apart. Russia controlled key enrichment supply chains until geopolitical disruptions cut Western access. The U.S. has not reprocessed commercial spent fuel since the 1970s, holds less than 8% of global enrichment capacity, and imports more than 70% of its enriched uranium. Current capacity covers only 10 to 25% of projected needs in 2050.

The lesson is stark: nuclear sovereignty requires mastering the fuel cycle end-to-end. This is as true for Europe as it is for the United States, and it is why solving spent fuel reprocessing is primordial for the broader deployment of nuclear power worldwide.

The policy window is now open. In May 2025, U.S. executive orders directed the DOE and NRC to reform licensing and evaluate reprocessing, the most significant federal push in decades. Uranium prices have risen to ~$85/lb, and the Department of Energy is already working with Project Omega at two of its national laboratories.

What makes Project Omega's opportunity distinct is extracting maximum value from reprocessed isotopes. Many are energy-dense materials with half-lives of dozens of years and applications across defense, space, and deep-sea communications. But today they are scarce and prohibitively expensive, precisely because reprocessing capabilities barely exist. One gram of tritium costs $30,000. Supply is the binding constraint, and that is exactly the bottleneck Project Omega is designed to break.

Project Omega's Solution: A Consumer-First Approach to Nuclear Waste (yes, it’s possible)

Most companies in the nuclear fuel cycle are trying to reprocess spent fuel to create specialized fuel for their own advanced reactors, a path requiring years of certification and billions in capital, for reactors that don't yet work. Project Omega takes a fundamentally different approach.

Rather than starting with supply and hoping demand follows, Staff and his team started with the customer: who needs these isotopes today, and what will they pay?

Project Omega's first products are long-life radiovoltaic batteries: power sources that convert radioactive decay into usable electricity. These are not theoretical. Omega has already demonstrated this at the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, converting radiation from nuclear isotopes into measured electrical power. The first applications are military: power for sensors, autonomous drones, underwater vehicles, and remote systems where conventional batteries fail. Omega is developing separation and refining at Idaho National Lab and has been awarded a DoD contract currently being finalized. As Staff puts it: these are drop-in replacements that resemble AA or AAA batteries, "I don't like rebuilding infrastructure."

The genius of this approach is economic: it turns spent nuclear fuel from a massive cost into something with positive value. The roughly 96% of waste that is uranium can be chemically separated and returned to the fuel market (albeit with some non-trivial re-enrichment). The remaining isotopes, previously considered waste, become high-value feedstock for long-life batteries.

And while Project Omega is starting in the U.S. where regulatory momentum and defense demand are strongest, the problem is inherently global. Every country operating nuclear reactors faces the same waste challenge and isotope scarcity.

The Team: Scientist at Heart Who Can Build (and Sell!) a product

Our conviction in Project Omega begins with Staff Sheehan: a world-class electrochemist who knows how to build a product and sell it. He is a repeat founder, starting his first company as an undergrad, then building and exiting Catalytic Innovations from his PhD, before co-founding Air Company, which turned atmospheric CO2 into jet fueland secured major DoD contracts.

What makes Staff exceptional is his ability to turn science into a business. He brings deep expertise in electrochemistry and catalysts, and a fresh perspective to nuclear fuel treatment. He's not reinventing the separation process. Instead, he's finding applications for isotopes that dramatically increase their value and justify the economics of treatment. It's a fantastic reframing of the problem.

The strongest signal of Staff's ability to build is who he attracts. When we asked how he planned to navigate nuclear regulation, given limited experience in the space, Staff answered: trust me. A couple of weeks later, he told us he had brought in Chris Hanson, former Chairman of the NRC, to lead regulatory strategy. That convinced us.

Why This Matters: When Stakes Are High, Show Up and Deliver

We often think about Kurion when evaluating nuclear investments. Co-founded by Josh Wolfe, from Lux Capital, Kurion started in 2008 building teleoperated robotics for nuclear applications. In just a few years, Kurion deployed its technology to address global challenges, which led to an acquisition by Veolia for $350 million.

Project Omega is positioning itself for a similar moment. Across the world, countries are building new reactors, expanding nuclear capacity, and for the first time in decades, seriously evaluating how to close the fuel cycle. The companies that have working technology, government relationships, and a clear path to deployment when the regulatory window opens will define this category, not just in one country, but globally.

Our Partnership

We're proud to join Project Omega's $12M Seed round led by Starship Ventures, alongside Mantis Ventures, Decisive Point, Slow Ventures, and Buckley Ventures, as well as an ARPA-E contract from the Department of Energy.

As a European fund investing in a U.S.-based company, this is a deliberate choice. The nuclear fuel cycle is a global challenge, and we believe the breakthroughs happening in the U.S. today will shape the industry everywhere. We're proud to bring a European perspective to Omega's journey, and excited about what this technology could mean for nuclear nations on both sides of the Atlantic.

A warm welcome to Staff and the entire Omega team to Pace Ventures.