Copenhagen Atomics has been awarded funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator programme to advance the development of its thorium molten salt reactors (MSRs).
The company is one of just 40 startups selected out of approximately 150 finalists in the latest round of EIC funding, aimed at supporting breakthrough technologies with high market potential.
As part of the EIC Accelerator, Copenhagen Atomics will receive:
- €2.5 million in grant funding to support continued technological development and prototype validation.
- Access to up to €15 million in equity investment through the EIC Fund to help scale operations and prepare for market entry.
Thomas Jam Pedersen, CEO and co-founder of Copenhagen Atomic, says:
This funding is a strong endorsement of Copenhagen Atomics’ vision to deliver clean, affordable, and scalable energy through mass-manufactured reactors. It will accelerate our efforts to bring our technology from prototype to market.
Copenhagen Atomics is developing a containerised MSR designed for factory production and global deployment. Operating at atmospheric pressure, the reactors use thorium-based liquid fuel and heavy water moderation. Each unit delivers 100 MWth and can use recycled nuclear waste as part of the fuel cycle, offering a dual benefit of energy production and long-term waste reduction.
To date, the company has built and tested two full-scale prototypes, logging more than 10,000 operating days on key subsystems including pumps, heat exchangers, and salt purification units. The next phase includes building a third non-fission prototype and preparing for the company’s first nuclear test in partnership with the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.
The EIC funding will support the further development of Copenhagen Atomics’ manufacturing infrastructure, supply chain, and licensing framework, all of which are critical for the commercial rollout. The long-term goal is to deploy fleets of these reactors to supply industrial heat and electricity for applications such as desalination, hydrogen and ammonia production.
In parallel with this achievement, Copenhagen Atomics was recently honoured with the Technology Whitespace Award at the 2025 Reuters Global Energy Transition Awards. The award recognises innovative technologies that fill critical gaps in the current energy transition landscape, particularly where mature solutions do not yet exist. Selected from more than 500 global entries, Copenhagen Atomics was commended for its pioneering approach to modular thorium MSRs.
About Copenhagen Atomics
Founded in 2014, Copenhagen Atomics has invented a new energy technology, which can provide energy at a lower cost than other energy technologies, and CA reactors can be installed much faster than other nuclear reactors. Copenhagen Atomics has achieved this through an innovative thorium reactor design with the size of a 40-foot shipping container, and the company aims to mass-manufacture these thorium reactors on assembly lines. When the rules are in place for spent nuclear fuel recycling, then these thorium reactors are able to consume all transuranics in the world.
Learn more at: https://www.copenhagenatomics.com/