Steady Energy: Finnish Small Modular Reactor Startup Plans to Go Public

Finnish nuclear technology startup Steady Energy plans to go public by combining with investment company 3North Partners through a share exchange, followed by an initial public offering on Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland. The newly named Steady Energy Plc will be valued at roughly €330 million based on an offer price of €10 per share. The company has lined up well over €100 million in funding, including binding commitments for around €69.8 million from institutional and strategic investors and a convertible loan of up to €40 million from the European Investment Bank. Former Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark will chair the board, and existing owners will hold about 77 percent of the shares.

Founded in 2023 as a spin-off from the Technical Research Centre of Finland, Steady Energy develops the LDR-50, a 50-megawatt reactor built exclusively to supply heat to district heating networks rather than to generate electricity. The technology relies on low-temperature, low-pressure light-water systems without turbines, aiming for simpler licensing and passive safety features. Alongside selling complete plants, the company utilizes a heat-as-a-service model where it owns and operates the reactors and sells only the produced heat to municipal utilities. Management targets revenue of over €500 million by 2035 and €1 billion by 2040, focusing on markets in Finland, Sweden, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

The European Investment Bank financing marks the EU lender's first direct support for a small modular reactor company. The zero-interest, 20-year loan is backed by the EU InvestEU programme as part of a wider European strategy to deploy modular reactors by the early 2030s. Steady Energy is currently building a non-nuclear pilot facility in Helsinki to test safety systems starting in 2027, with a government decision-in-principle anticipated between 2027 and 2028 and construction of the first commercial reactor targeted for 2029 or 2030.