Filed Pursuant to Rule 424(b)(3)​
 Registration No. 333-280344​
PROSPECTUS
[MISSING IMAGE: lg_oklo-bwlr.jpg]
62,440,080 Shares of Common Stock
This prospectus relates to the offer and sale from time to time by the selling securityholders named in this prospectus (the “Selling Holders”), or their permitted transferees, of up to 62,440,080 shares of our Class A Common Stock, $0.0001 par value (“Common Stock”) of Oklo Inc. (formerly known as AltC Acquisition Corp.) (the “Company”), consisting of (a) 40,940,778 shares of Common Stock issued to the Selling Holders in exchange for outstanding shares of Legacy Oklo Common Stock (as defined below) in connection with the closing of the Business Combination (as defined herein) (the “Closing”) at an equity consideration value of $10.00 per share by certain of the Selling Holders named in this prospectus; (b) 1,450,000 shares of Common Stock issued to AltC Sponsor LLC (“Sponsor”) that were originally purchased at a price of $10.00 per share in connection with the Company’s Initial Public Offering (the “Company IPO”); (c) 12,500,000 shares of Common Stock issued to Sponsor that were originally purchased at a price of $0.0006 per share in connection with the Company’s IPO; and (d) 7,549,302 shares of Common Stock (the “Earnout Shares”), issuable to certain of the Selling Holders upon the satisfaction of certain price targets, which are based upon (A) the closing sale price of one share of Common Stock as quoted on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) or the exchange on which the shares of Common Stock are then traded, for any twenty trading days within any sixty consecutive trading day period within the five-year period following the Closing or (B) if the Company undergoes a Change in Control (as defined herein), the price per share received by stockholders of the Company in such Change in Control transaction.
We are registering the securities for resale pursuant to the Selling Holders’ registration rights under certain agreements between us and the Selling Holders, as applicable to each Selling Holder. Our registration of the securities covered by this prospectus does not mean that the Selling Holders will offer or sell any of the securities. The Selling Holders may offer, sell or distribute all or a portion of their shares of Common Stock publicly or through private transactions at prevailing market prices or at negotiated prices. We will not receive any of the proceeds from any resale of the Common Stock being offered for resale in this prospectus (the “Resale Securities”).
We provide more information about how the Selling Holders may sell their securities in the section of this prospectus entitled “Plan of Distribution.” We have agreed to bear all of the expenses incurred in connection with the registration of these securities. The Selling Holders will pay or assume underwriting fees, discounts and commissions or similar charges, if any, incurred in the sale of securities by them.
We may amend or supplement this prospectus from time to time by filing amendments or supplements as required.
Our Common Stock is listed on the NYSE under the symbol “OKLO.” On September 17, 2024, the closing price of the Common Stock was $6.30 per share.
The Selling Holders named herein are comprised of Sponsor, certain legacy investors in Legacy Oklo (as defined herein), and certain of our directors and executive officers and their affiliates. The following table provides the number of shares of Common Stock offered hereby by each Selling Holder as well as the historical weighted-average price paid per share of Common Stock by each Selling Holder. The table is based on the Company’s internal records and is for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon beyond its illustrative nature.
Selling Securityholder
​ ​
Number of Shares
Offered for Resale
​ ​
Historical Weighted-
Average Price Paid
Per Share
($)
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Jacob DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 13,253,926 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Caroline Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 12,923,654 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
AltC Sponsor LLC
​ ​ ​ ​ 13,950,000 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.0412 ​ ​
Michael Klein
​ ​ ​ ​ 13,950,000 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.0412 ​ ​
Mithril II, L.P.
​ ​ ​ ​ 7,710,768 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 4.6600 ​ ​
Data Collective IV, L.P.
​ ​ ​ ​ 8,196,971 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 4.6500 ​ ​
Saxon Road Capital Management IV, LLC
​ ​ ​ ​ 130,635 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.9200 ​ ​
Hydrazine Capital II, L.P.
​ ​ ​ ​ 3,732,479 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.9200 ​ ​
Paul Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 567,203 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Julie Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 567,203 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Isaac Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Melissa Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Michael DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 538,484 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Barbara DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 538,484 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Jason DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Joshua DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
Mary DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​
The Resale Securities represent a substantial percentage of the total outstanding shares of our Common Stock as of the date of this prospectus. The shares of Common Stock that the Selling Holders can sell into the public markets pursuant to this prospectus is up to 62,440,080 shares of Common Stock, constituting approximately 51.1% of our issued and outstanding shares of Common Stock and approximately 77.3% of our issued and outstanding shares of Common Stock held by non-affiliates. The sale of all the Resale Securities or the perception that these sales could occur, could result in a significant decline in the public trading price of our securities. Even if the current trading price of our common stock is at or significantly below $10.00 per share, the price at which the shares were issued in the Company IPO, certain of the Selling Holders, including Sponsor, may have an incentive to sell because they will still profit on sales due to the lower price at which they purchased their shares compared to the public securityholders.
For additional information about the price paid by the Selling Holders, including the potential profit the Selling Holders will earn based on the current trading price of the Common Stock, please see “Selling Holders” and “Risk Factors — Risks related to being a public company — Sales of a substantial number of our securities in the public market by the Selling Holders or by our existing stockholders could cause the price of our shares of Common Stock to fall.”
We are an “emerging growth company” under applicable Securities and Exchange Commission rules and will be eligible for reduced public company reporting requirements. See “Summary — Emerging Growth Company; Smaller Reporting Company.”
Investing in our Common Stock involves risks. For a discussion of the material risks that you should consider, see “Risk Factors” beginning on page 14 of this prospectus.
None of the Securities and Exchange Commission or any state securities commission has approved or disapproved of these securities or determined if this prospectus is accurate or complete. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.
The date of this Prospectus is September 18, 2024
 
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PROSPECTUS SUMMARY
This prospectus is part of a registration statement on Form S-1 that we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) using the “shelf” registration process. Under the shelf registration process, the Selling Holders may, from time to time, sell the securities offered by them described in this prospectus through any means described in the section of this prospectus entitled “Plan of Distribution.” We will not receive any proceeds from the sale by such Selling Holders of the securities offered by them as described in this prospectus.
Neither we nor the Selling Holders have authorized anyone to provide you with any information or to make any representations other than those contained in this prospectus, any post-effective amendment, any applicable prospectus supplement or any free writing prospectuses prepared by or on behalf of us or to which we have referred you. Neither we nor the Selling Holders take responsibility for and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of any other information that others may give you. Neither we nor the Selling Holders will make an offer to sell these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted. You should assume that the information appearing in this prospectus, any post-effective amendment and any applicable prospectus supplement to this prospectus is accurate only as of the date on its respective cover. Our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may have changed since those dates. This prospectus contains, and any post-effective amendment or any prospectus supplement may contain, market data and industry statistics and forecasts that are based on independent industry publications and other publicly available information. We believe this information is reliable as of the applicable date of its publication, however, we have not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of the information included in or assumptions relied on in these third-party publications. In addition, the market and industry data and forecasts that may be included in this prospectus, any post-effective amendment or any prospectus supplement may involve estimates, assumptions and other risks and uncertainties and are subject to change based on various factors, including those discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” contained in this prospectus, any post-effective amendment and the applicable prospectus supplement. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on this information.
We may also file a prospectus supplement or post-effective amendment to the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part to add information to, or update or change information contained in, this prospectus. Any statement contained in this prospectus will be deemed to be modified or superseded for purposes of this prospectus to the extent that a statement contained in such prospectus supplement or post-effective amendment modifies or supersedes such statement. Any statement so modified will be deemed to constitute a part of this prospectus only as so modified, and any statement so superseded will not be deemed to constitute a part of this prospectus. You should read both this prospectus and any applicable prospectus supplement or post-effective amendment to the registration statement together with the additional information to which we refer you in the section of this prospectus entitled “Where You Can Find More Information.”
In accordance with the terms of, and transactions contemplated by, the Agreement and Plan of Merger and Reorganization, dated as of July 11, 2023 (as may be amended, modified, supplemented or waived from time to time (the “Merger Agreement”), by and among the Company (formerly known as AltC Acquisition Corp.), AltC Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of AltC (“Merger Sub”) and Oklo Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Legacy Oklo”), on May 9, 2024 Merger Sub merged with and into Legacy Oklo, with Legacy Oklo surviving such merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of AltC (the “Merger,” and together with the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement and the related agreements, the “Transactions” or the “Business Combination”). Following the consummation of the Business Combination, AltC changed its name to “Oklo Inc.”
Unless the context indicates otherwise, references in this prospectus to the “Company,” “Oklo,” “we,” “us,” “our” and similar terms refer to Oklo Inc., a Delaware corporation (f/k/a AltC Acquisition Corp., a Delaware corporation), and its consolidated subsidiaries following the Closing (as defined below). Unless the context otherwise requires, references to “AltC” refer to AltC Acquisition Corp., a Delaware corporation, prior to the Closing. All references herein to the “Board” refer to the board of directors of the Company.
 
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CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This prospectus includes statements that express our opinions, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or projections regarding future events or future results and therefore are, or may be deemed to be, “forward-looking statements.” These forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the terms “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “predicts,” “projects,” “forecasts,” “may,” “might,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “would,” “seeks,” “plans,” “scheduled,” “possible,” “continue,” “potential,” “anticipates” or “intends” or, in each case, their negative or other variations or comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements include all matters that are not historical facts. They appear in a number of places throughout this prospectus (including in information that is into this prospectus) and include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, among other things, the Business Combination and the benefits of the Business Combination, including results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies and the markets in which we operate. Such forward-looking statements are based on available current market material and management’s expectations, beliefs and forecasts concerning future events impacting the Company. Factors that may impact such forward-looking statements include:
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our ability to maintain the listing of our Common Stock on the NYSE;
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changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political and legal conditions;
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our pursuit of an emerging market, with no commercial project operating;
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the fact that we have not entered into any definitive agreements with customers for the sale of power or recycling of nuclear fuel;
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our ability to enter into agreements with potential new customers to provide power may be limited by certain terms of the February 2024 LOI (as defined herein), including right of first refusal and most favored nations provisions;
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our potential need for financing to grow its business and/or to construct its powerhouses or other facilities;
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risks relating to the uncertainty of the projected financial information with respect to us, including conversion of reservations, letters of intent, and memoranda of understanding, into binding orders;
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risks related to the timing of expected business milestones and commercial launch;
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risks related to future market adoption of our offerings;
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the effects of competition;
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changes in regulatory requirements, governmental incentives and fuel and energy prices;
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changes to applicable government policies, regulations, mandates and funding levels relating to our business with government entities;
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the impact to us and our potential customers from changes in interest rates or inflation and rising costs, including commodity and labor costs;
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our ability to rapidly innovate;
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our ability to maintain, protect and enhance its intellectual property;
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our ability to attract, retain and expand our future customer base;
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our ability to effectively manage our growth and recruit and retain key employees, including our chief executive officer and executive team;
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our ability to establish our brand and capture additional market share, and the risks associated with negative press or reputational harm;
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our ability to achieve a competitive levelized cost of electricity;
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our ability to manage expenses including operating and capital expenses;
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our projected commercialization costs and timeline;
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our ability to timely and effectively meet construction timelines and scale our production and manufacturing process;
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changes in the policies, priorities, regulations, mandates and funding levels of the governmental entities to which we are subject;
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the risk that certain illustrative unit economics are based on assumptions and expectations, including with respect to costs, revenue, and sources of revenue, and gross margins, that prove to be incorrect for any reason;
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our ability to issue equity or equity-linked securities in the future;
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the ability to raise sufficient capital to fund our business plan;
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the ability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the Transactions, which may be affected by, among other things, competition, and our ability to grow and manage growth profitably;
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the impact and potential extended duration of the current supply/demand imbalance in the market for high-assay low-enriched uranium;
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whether government funding for high-assay, low-enriched uranium for government or commercial uses will result in adequate supply on anticipated timelines to support our business;
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our and our commercial partners’ ability to obtain regulatory approvals necessary to deploy small modular reactors in the U.S. and abroad in a timely way, or at all;
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risks relating to the negative public or political perception of us or the nuclear energy industry in general;
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the outcome of any potential litigation, government and regulatory proceedings, investigations and inquiries; and
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other risks and uncertainties described in this prospectus, including those under the section titled “Risk Factors.”
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The forward-looking statements contained in this prospectus are based on our current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects on the Company. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this prospectus, and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain and you are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting the Company will be those that we have anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors described or incorporated by reference under the heading “Risk Factors” below. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of the assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in these forward-looking statements. The Company will not and does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
 
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FREQUENTLY USED TERMS
Unless the context otherwise requires, as used in this prospectus:
“2016 Plan” are to the 2016 Stock Incentive Plan of Oklo Inc. duly adopted by the Legacy Oklo Board on May 3, 2016;
“AltC” are to AltC Acquisition Corp., a Delaware corporation;
“Board” are to the board of directors of the Company;
“bylaws” are to the Company’s amended and restated bylaws;
“certificate of incorporation” are to the Company’s second amended and restated certificate of incorporation;
“Change in Control” are to (i) a purchase, sale, exchange, business combination or other transaction (including a merger or consolidation of the Company with or into any other corporation or other entity) in which the equity securities of the Company, its successor, or the surviving entity of such business combination or other transaction are not registered under the Exchange Act or listed or quoted for trading on a national securities exchange, (ii) a sale, lease, exchange or other transfer (including a merger) in one transaction or a series of related transactions of assets representing 50% or more of the value of the Company’s assets (including other subsidiaries of the Company) to a third party that is not an affiliate of the Sponsor (or a group of third parties that are not affiliates of the Sponsor) or (iii) the transfer to or acquisition by (whether by tender offer, merger, consolidation, division or other similar transaction), in one transaction or a series of related transactions, a person or entity or group of affiliated persons or entities (other than an underwriter pursuant to an offering), of the Company’s voting securities if, after such transfer or acquisition, such person, entity or group of affiliated persons or entities would beneficially own (as defined in Rule 13d-3 promulgated under the Exchange Act) more than 50% of the outstanding voting securities of the Company (it being understood for the purposes of this clause (iii), a bona fide equity financing shall not be considered a Change in Control);
“Closing” are to the consummation of the Transactions;
“Closing Date” are to the date on which the Transactions are consummated;
“Common Stock” are to shares of Class A common stock, par value $0.0001 per share, of the Company;
“Company” are to Oklo Inc., the public entity following the consummation of the Business Combination;
“Company IPO” are to the initial public offering by AltC, which closed on July 12, 2021;
“Conversion” are to the conversion immediately prior to the Closing of (a) all shares of Legacy Oklo preferred stock into shares of Legacy Oklo common stock in accordance with the terms of Legacy Oklo’s certificate of incorporation and (b) all Legacy Oklo SAFEs into shares of Legacy Oklo common stock in accordance with the terms thereof, in each case pursuant to the terms of the Merger Agreement;
“Court” are to the Delaware Court of Chancery;
“DGCL” are to the Delaware General Corporation Law, as amended;
“Earnout Period” are to the time period commencing on the Closing Date and ending on the earlier of (i) the five-year anniversary of the Closing Date and (ii) a Change in Control;
“Earnout Shares” are to up to an aggregate of 15,000,000 shares of Common Stock that will be issued to Eligible Legacy Oklo Equityholders upon the occurrence of an Earnout Triggering Event during the Earnout Period;
“Earnout Triggering Event I” are to the earliest of the following to occur during the Earnout Period: (i) the date on which the closing stock price of Common Stock is greater than or equal to $12.00 per share for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period or (ii) a Change in Control of the Company
 
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pursuant to which holders of Common Stock have the right to receive consideration implying a value per share greater than or equal to $12.00 after (i) taking into account the dilutive effect of any Earnout Shares that have been or would be issued at Earnout Triggering Event I and (ii) excluding any Founder Shares that have been or would be forfeited pursuant to the Sponsor Agreement;
“Earnout Triggering Event II” are to the earliest of the following to occur during the Earnout Period: (i) the date on which the closing stock price of Common Stock is greater than or equal to $14.00 per share for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period or (ii) a Change in Control of the Company pursuant to which holders of Common Stock have the right to receive consideration implying a value per share greater than or equal to $14.00 after (i) taking into account the dilutive effect of any Earnout Shares that have been or would be issued at Earnout Triggering Event II, and, if applicable, Earnout Triggering Event I, and (ii) excluding any Founder Shares that have been or would be forfeited pursuant to the Sponsor Agreement;
“Earnout Triggering Event III” are to the earliest of the following to occur during the Earnout Period: (i) the date on which the closing stock price of Common Stock is greater than or equal to $16.00 per share for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period or (ii) a Change in Control of the Company pursuant to which holders of Common Stock have the right to receive consideration implying a value per share greater than or equal to $16.00 after (i) taking into account the dilutive effect of any Earnout Shares that have been or would be issued at Earnout Triggering Event III, and, if applicable, Earnout Triggering Event I and Earnout Triggering Event II, and (ii) excluding any Founder Shares that have been or would be forfeited pursuant to the Sponsor Agreement;
“Earnout Triggering Events” are to Earnout Trigger Event I, Earnout Trigger Event II, and Earnout Trigger Event III;
“Effective Time” are to the date and time that the Merger becomes effective pursuant to the terms of the Merger Agreement;
“Eligible Legacy Oklo Equityholder” are to (i) all persons that held one or more shares of Legacy Oklo common stock as of immediately prior to the Effective Time (after giving effect to the Conversion) and (ii) all persons that held one or more vested Legacy Oklo options as of immediately prior to the Effective Time;
“Equinix” are to Equinix, Inc.;
“Equity Value” are to the sum of (i) $850,000,000 plus (ii) the amount of any net proceeds raised by Legacy Oklo following the execution of the Merger Agreement but prior to the consummation of the Transactions through a Permitted Equity Financing;
“ESPP” are to the Oklo Inc. 2024 Employee Stock Purchase Plan;
“Exchange Act” are to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended;
“Exchange Ratio” are to the quotient, rounded to the nearest thousandth (0.001), obtained by dividing (i) the per share Equity Value by (ii) $10.00;
“February 2024 LOI” are to that certain Confidential Letter of Intent to Purchase Power, dated as of February 16, 2024, by and between Legacy Oklo and Equinix;
“February 2024 LOI Amount” are to the $25.0 million prepayment made by Equinix to Legacy Oklo for the supply of power by Legacy Oklo pursuant to the February 2024 LOI (which, Legacy Oklo and the Company have agreed, will be treated as a Permitted Equity Financing);
“Founder Shares” are to shares of AltC Class B common stock, par value $0.0001, prior to the Closing of the Business Combination and the Common Stock issued upon the automatic conversion thereof at the time of the Business Combination. The Founder Shares are held of record by the Sponsor;
“GAAP” are to accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America;
“HALEU” are to high-assay low-enriched uranium;
 
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“HSR Act” are to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended;
“Incentive Plan” are to the Oklo Inc. 2024 Equity Incentive Plan;
“Insiders” are to Sam Altman, Michael Klein, Jay Taragin, Frances Frei, Allison Green, Peter Lattman and John L. Thornton;
“IRS” are to the Internal Revenue Service;
“Legacy Oklo” are to Oklo Inc., a Delaware corporation, prior to the Business Combination;
“Legacy Oklo Board” are to the board of directors of Legacy Oklo;
“Legacy Oklo capital stock” are to Legacy Oklo common stock and Legacy Oklo preferred stock;
“Legacy Oklo common stock” are to Legacy Oklo’s common stock, par value $0.0001 per share;
“Legacy Oklo’s bylaws” are to Legacy Oklo’s bylaws;
“Legacy Oklo’s certificate of incorporation” are to Legacy Oklo’s amended and restated certificate of incorporation;
“Legacy Oklo options” are to all issued and outstanding options to purchase or otherwise acquire shares of Legacy Oklo common stock (whether or not vested) held by any person, including Legacy Oklo stock options granted under the 2016 Plan;
“Legacy Oklo SAFEs” are to the simple agreements for future equity between Oklo and the investors party thereto;
“Legacy Oklo Total Shares” are to the sum of (i) the aggregate number of issued and outstanding shares of Legacy Oklo capital stock as of immediately prior to the Effective Time, after giving effect to the Conversion, and (ii) the aggregate number of shares of Legacy Oklo capital stock issuable upon the exercise of all Legacy Oklo options as of immediately prior to the Effective Time (including after giving effect to any acceleration of any unvested Legacy Oklo options in connection with the consummation of the Merger);
“legacy registration rights agreement” are to the Registration Rights Agreement, dated July 7, 2021, between the Company and certain other security holders named therein, in connection with the Company IPO;
“Merger” are to the merger of Merger Sub with and into Legacy Oklo, with Legacy Oklo surviving such merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company;
“Merger Agreement” are to that certain Agreement and Plan of Merger and Reorganization, dated as of July 11, 2023, by and among the Company, Legacy Oklo and Merger Sub, as the same has been or may be amended, modified, supplemented or waived from time to time;
“Merger Consideration” are to the aggregate consideration to be paid to Legacy Oklo equityholders, including Legacy Oklo stockholders and holders of Legacy Oklo SAFEs and outstanding Legacy Oklo options;
“Merger Sub” are to AltC Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of AltC;
“MKA” are to M. Klein Associates, Inc., a New York corporation;
“MWe” are to megawatts electric, which are each one million watts electric;
“NRC” are to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
“NYSE” are to the New York Stock Exchange;
“options” are to all issued and outstanding options to purchase shares of Common Stock immediately following the Closing of the Merger, including Legacy Oklo options assumed by the Company that became an option to purchase shares of Common Stock in accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement;
 
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“per share Equity Value” are to the quotient, rounded to the nearest $0.01, obtained by dividing (a) the sum of (1) the Equity Value plus (2) the aggregate exercise price of all Legacy Oklo options as of immediately prior to the Effective Time by (b) the Legacy Oklo Total Shares;
“per share Merger Consideration” are to, with respect to any share of Legacy Oklo capital stock that was issued and outstanding immediately prior to the Effective Time after giving effect to the Conversion, (a) a number of shares of Common Stock equal to the Exchange Ratio and (b) the contingent right to receive Earnout Shares that may be issued during the Earnout Period;
“Permitted Equity Financing” are to the sale (or a series of related sales) of Legacy Oklo’s equity securities in a bona fide equity financing transaction, subject to certain limitations;
“preferred stock” are to, collectively, the Series A-1 preferred stock, Series A-2 preferred stock and Series A-3 preferred stock of the Company;
“Private Placement Shares” are to AltC Class A common stock, par value $0.0001, prior to the Closing of the Business Combination and the Common Stock issued upon the automatic conversion thereof at the time of the Business Combination. issued to the Sponsor in a private placement transaction simultaneously with the closing of the Company IPO;
“Registration Rights Agreement” are to the Amended and Restated Registration Rights Agreement, dated as of the Closing Date, by and among the Company, certain Company stockholders and certain Legacy Oklo stockholders;
“Sale” are to, following the Closing Date, (A) a purchase, sale, exchange, business combination or other transaction (including a merger or consolidation of the Company with or into any other corporation or other entity) in which the equity securities of the Company, its successor or the surviving entity of such business combination or other transaction are not registered under the Exchange Act or listed or quoted for trading on a national securities exchange, (B) a sale, lease, exchange or other transfer in one transaction or a series of related transactions of all or substantially all of the Company’s assets to a third party that is not an affiliate of Sponsor (or a group of third parties that are not affiliates of Sponsor) or (C) the transfer to or acquisition by (whether by tender offer, merger, consolidation, division or other similar transaction), in one transaction or a series of related transactions, a person or entity or group of affiliated persons or entities (other than an underwriter pursuant to an offering), of the Company’s voting securities if, after such transfer or acquisition, such person, entity or group of affiliated persons or entities would beneficially own (as defined in Rule 13d-3 promulgated under the Exchange Act) more than 50% of the outstanding voting securities of the Company (it being understood for the purposes of this clause (C), a bona fide equity financing shall not be considered a “Sale”);
“Securities Act” are to the Securities Act of 1933, as amended;
“Sponsor” are to AltC Sponsor LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and an affiliate of MKA in which certain of the Company’s directors and officers hold membership interests;
“Sponsor Agreement” are to the Amended and Restated Letter Agreement, dated as of July 11, 2023, by and among the Company, the Sponsor and the Insiders;
“Transaction Agreements” or “related agreements” are to the Merger Agreement; the Registration Rights Agreement; those certain Voting and Support Agreements, dated as of July 11, 2023, by and among the Company, Legacy Oklo and certain Legacy Oklo stockholders; the Company’s certificate of incorporation; and the Company’s bylaws; and all of the agreements, documents, instruments and certificates entered into in connection with such documents and any and all exhibits and schedules thereto;
“Transactions” or “Business Combination” are to the Merger, together with the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement and the related agreements;
“Vesting Period” are to a period within five years of the Closing;
“Vesting Trigger Event I” are to the date on which the closing price per share of Common Stock on the NYSE, or such other securities exchange where Common Stock is primarily listed or quoted, equals or exceeds $10.00 for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period;
 
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“Vesting Trigger Event II” are to the date on which the closing price per share of Common Stock on the NYSE, or such other securities exchange where Common Stock is primarily listed or quoted, equals or exceeds $12.00 for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period;
“Vesting Trigger Event III” are to the date on which the closing price per share of Common Stock on the NYSE, or such other securities exchange where Common Stock is primarily listed or quoted, equals or exceeds $14.00 for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period;
“Vesting Trigger Event IV” are to the date on which the closing price per share of Common Stock on the NYSE, or such other securities exchange where Common Stock is primarily listed or quoted, equals or exceeds $16.00 for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period; and
“Vesting Triggering Events” are to Vesting Trigger Event I, Vesting Trigger Event II, Vesting Trigger Event III and Vesting Trigger Event IV, collectively.
 
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PROSPECTUS SUMMARY
This summary highlights selected information included in this prospectus and does not contain all of the information that may be important to you in making your investment decision. You should read this entire prospectus carefully, especially the “Risk Factors” section and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes appearing at the end of this prospectus, before deciding to invest in our securities.
Overview of the Company
Legacy Oklo was founded in 2013 with the goal of revolutionizing the energy landscape by developing clean, reliable, affordable energy solutions at scale. We believe that global demand for reliable, clean energy is growing rapidly and according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2022 it is estimated that new policies in major energy markets will propel an expected $2 trillion to be spent on new clean power generation globally by 2030. We are pursuing two complementary tracks to address this demand: providing reliable, commercial-scale energy to customers and selling used nuclear fuel recycling services to the U.S. market.
We are developing next-generation fast fission power plants called “powerhouses.” In our differentiated build, own, and operate business model, we plan to sell power in the forms of electricity and heat directly to customers, which we believe can allow for fast-tracked customer adoption. In addition, we believe we are a pioneer in the nuclear industry in the development of fuel recycling capabilities, which can unlock the energy content of used fuel; we also believe this business unit can complement its market position by vertically integrating and securing our fuel supply chain.
Corporate Information
Our Common Stock is listed on NYSE under the symbol “OKLO.” The mailing address of the Company’s principal executive office is 3190 Coronado Dr., Santa Clara, CA 95054. Our telephone number is (650) 550-0127. Our website address is www.oklo.com. The information contained in, or accessible through, our website does not constitute a part of this prospectus. We have included our website address in this prospectus solely as an inactive textual reference.
Emerging Growth Company
As a company with less than $1.235 billion in revenue during our last fiscal year, we qualify as an “emerging growth company” as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, as amended (the “JOBS Act”). An “emerging growth company” may take advantage of reduced reporting requirements that are otherwise applicable to public companies that are not emerging growth companies. These provisions include, but are not limited to:
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not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”);
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not being required to comply with any requirement that may be adopted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board regarding mandatory audit firm rotation or a supplement to the auditor’s report providing additional information about the audit and the financial statements (i.e., an auditor discussion and analysis);
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reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports, proxy statements and registration statements; and
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exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote of stockholders on executive compensation, stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved and having to disclose the ratio of the compensation of our chief executive officer to the median compensation of our employees.
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We may take advantage of these provisions until the last day of our fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the completion of the Company IPO. However, if (i) our annual gross revenue exceeds $1.235 billion, (ii) we issue more than $1.0 billion of non-convertible debt in any three-year period or (iii) we become a “large accelerated filer” ​(as defined in Rule 12b-2 under the Exchange Act) prior to the end of
 
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such five-year period, we will cease to be an emerging growth company. We will be deemed to be a “large accelerated filer” at such time that we (a) have an aggregate worldwide market value of common equity securities held by non-affiliates of $700.0 million or more as of the last business day of our most recently completed second fiscal quarter, (b) have been required to file annual and quarterly reports under the Exchange Act for a period of at least 12 months and (c) have filed at least one annual report pursuant to the Exchange Act.
We have elected to take advantage of certain of the reduced disclosure obligations in the registration statement of which this prospectus is a part and may elect to take advantage of other reduced reporting requirements in future filings. As a result, the information that we provide to our stockholders may be different than you might receive from other public reporting companies in which you hold equity interests.
In addition, the JOBS Act provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. We have elected to use the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. As a result of this election, our financial statements may not be comparable to companies that comply with public company effective dates.
Smaller Reporting Company
We are also a “smaller reporting company” under the Exchange Act. We may continue to be a smaller reporting company so long as, as of June 30 of the preceding year, (i) the market value of our voting and non-voting equity held by non-affiliates, or our public float, is less than $250 million; or (ii) we have annual revenues less than $100 million and either we have no public float or our public float is less than $700 million. If we are a smaller reporting company at the time we cease to be an emerging growth company, we may continue to rely on exemptions from certain disclosure requirements that are available to smaller reporting companies. Specifically, as a smaller reporting company we may choose to present only the two most recent fiscal years of audited financial statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and, similar to emerging growth companies, smaller reporting companies have reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation.
 
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THE OFFERING
Issuer
Oklo Inc.
Shares of Common Stock offered by the Selling Holders
Up to 62,440,080 shares of our Common Stock.
Shares of Common Stock outstanding
122,096,270 shares of Common Stock (as of September 17, 2024).
Use of Proceeds
We are filing the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part to permit the Selling Holders to resell their shares of Common Stock. All of the Common Stock offered by the Selling Holders pursuant to this prospectus will be sold by the Selling Holders for their respective accounts. We will not receive any of the proceeds from these sales. See the section of this prospectus entitled “Use of Proceeds.”
Market for Common Stock
Our Common Stock is currently traded on NYSE under the symbol “OKLO.”
Risk Factors
See the section of this prospectus entitled “Risk Factors” and other information included in this prospectus for a discussion of factors you should consider before investing in our Common Stock.
For additional information concerning the offering, see the section of this prospectus entitled “Plan of Distribution.”
 
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RISK FACTORS SUMMARY
The below is a summary of principal risks to our business and risks associated with ownership of our Common Stock. It is only a summary. You should read the more detailed discussion of risks set forth below and elsewhere in this prospectus for a more complete discussion of the risks listed below and other risks.
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We have not yet constructed any powerhouses or entered into any binding contract with any customer to operate a plant or deliver electricity or heat, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to do so in the future. This limited commercial operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our prospects, the risks and challenges we may encounter and our total potential addressable market.
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We have a limited commercial operating history in a rapidly evolving industry. As a result, it is difficult for us to evaluate and prepare for all the risks and challenges we may encounter.
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We have no experience in operating a company that builds and operates commercial nuclear power plants or that directly provides customers heat or power.
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We are an early-stage company with a history of financial losses (e.g., negative cash flows), and we expect to incur significant expenses and continuing financial losses at least until our powerhouses become commercially viable, which may never occur.
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Our construction and delivery timeline estimates for our powerhouses, facilities, and other equipment may increase due to a number of factors, including the degree of pre-fabrication, standardization, on-site construction, long-lead procurement, contractor performance, plant pre-operational and startup testing and other site-specific considerations.
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Our powerhouses, like many advanced fission reactors, are expected to rely on HALEU, in part or for a period of time until recycled waste fuel is available. HALEU is not currently available at scale. Access to a domestic supply of HALEU may require regulatory approval, and additional third-party development and investment and/or significant government assistance. If we are unable to access HALEU, or recycled waste fuel, our ability to manufacture fuel and to produce power will be adversely affected, which could have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
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Building a new fuel fabrication facility is challenging as a result of many factors, including regulatory and construction complexity, and may take longer or cost more than we expect.
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Building a new fuel recycling facility is challenging as a result of many factors, including regulatory and construction complexity, and may take longer or cost more than we expect.
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Our supply base may not be able to scale to the production levels necessary to meet sales projections.
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We rely on a limited number of suppliers for certain materials and supplied components, some of which are highly specialized and are being designed for first-of-a-kind or sole use in our powerhouses, fuel fabrication facilities, and fuel recycling facilities. We and our third-party vendors may not be able to obtain sufficient materials or supplied components to meet our manufacturing and operating needs or obtain such materials on favorable terms including price. Additionally, certain components may only be available from international suppliers.
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The nature of our business requires us to interact with various governmental entities, making us subject to the policies, priorities, regulations, mandates and funding levels of such governmental entities and we may be negatively or positively impacted by any change thereto.
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The NYSE may not continue to list our Common Stock, which could limit investors’ ability to make transactions in our Common Stock and subject us to additional trading restrictions.
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A market for our securities may not continue, which would adversely affect the liquidity and price of our securities.
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If securities or industry analysts do not publish or cease publishing research or reports about us, our business, or our market, or if they change their recommendations regarding our Common Stock adversely, then the price and trading volume of our Common Stock could decline.
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Resales of our Common Stock may cause the market price of our Common Stock to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
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The market price of our Common Stock could be highly volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance. You may lose some or all of your investment.
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We are an “emerging growth company” and the reduced reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies could make our Common Stock less attractive to investors.
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RISK FACTORS
You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below and the other information in this prospectus before making an investment in our Common Stock. Our business, financial condition, results of operations, or prospects could be materially and adversely affected if any of these risks occurs, and as a result, the market price of our Common Stock could decline and you could lose all or part of your investment. This prospectus also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. See “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.” Our actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors, including those set forth below.
Risks Related to Our Business and Operations
We have not yet constructed any powerhouses or entered into any binding contract with any customer to operate a plant or deliver electricity or heat, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to do so in the future. This limited commercial operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our prospects, the risks and challenges we may encounter and our total potential addressable market.
Our business plan to construct and operate our powerhouses is subject to reaching binding agreements with potential customers for electricity or heat delivered by our powerhouses. If no potential near-term customer enters into such binding agreements with us, our planned construction and operation of our powerhouses could be significantly delayed. Such delays would result in delays in revenue and could hinder our ability to gain market traction with other potential customers. This could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition. To date, we have entered into contingent non-binding letters of intent to purchase power with potential customers which may not result in binding agreements for the purchase electricity or heat from our powerhouses. In addition, we have been tentatively selected to provide electricity and steam to Eielson AFB, and such award has not been finalized and is subject to our completion of various requirements set forth by the U.S. Air Force. As a result of our limited commercial operating history and ongoing changes in our new and evolving industry, including evolving demand for our products and services and the potential development of technologies that may prove more efficient or effective for our intended use cases, our ability to forecast our future results of operations and plan for and model future growth is limited and subject to a number of uncertainties. Therefore, there can be no assurance that our internal estimates relating to the size of our total addressable market will be correct. In addition, our expectations with respect to our total potential addressable market may differ from those of third parties, including investors or securities analysts.
We have a limited commercial operating history in a rapidly evolving industry. As a result, it is difficult for us to evaluate and prepare for all the risks and challenges we may encounter.
We have a limited commercial operating history in a rapidly evolving industry. The markets for electricity and heat generated by nuclear power plants, nuclear reactor design, nuclear reactor production, nuclear fuel design, nuclear fuel supply, nuclear waste recycling, nuclear fuel fabrication, nuclear waste management and services related to any or all of the foregoing may not continue to develop in a manner that we expect or that otherwise would be favorable to our business. We have encountered and expect to continue to encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly evolving industries, such as the risks and uncertainties described in this prospectus. Accordingly, we may be unable to prepare accurate internal financial forecasts or replace anticipated revenue that we do not receive as a result of delays, changed circumstances, or changed market conditions arising from these factors, and our results of operations in future reporting periods may be below the expectations of investors or analysts. If we do not address these risks successfully, our results of operations could differ materially from our estimates and forecasts or the expectations of investors or analysts, causing our business to suffer and our common stock price to decline.
We have no experience in operating a company that builds and operates commercial nuclear power plants or that directly provides customers heat or power.
We have no experience operating a company that builds, operates, or maintains commercial nuclear power plants or that directly provides customers energy as electricity or heat. Our management may not be
 
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fully aware of many of the specific requirements of operating such a company. We believe our primary business approach of providing power directly to customers as opposed to licensing designs or selling powerhouses is unique in the nuclear power industry. As a result of our business model and lack of experience of our management, our management’s decisions and choices may not take into account standard managerial approaches which commercial nuclear power companies commonly use or such approaches may not be directly relevant to our business. Our operations, earnings and ultimate financial success could suffer due to our management’s lack of experience. As a result, we would be subject to all of the risks associated with establishing a new commercial nuclear power company and additionally the risks associated with a new business model in our industry which could materially and adversely affect our business.
We are an early-stage company with a history of financial losses (e.g., negative cash flows), and we expect to incur significant expenses and continuing financial losses at least until our powerhouses become commercially viable, which may never occur.
We expect our operating expenses to increase over the next several years and to continue to incur operating losses for the foreseeable future as we continue to expand and develop, and we will likely need additional capital from external sources. If we are unable to raise additional capital, we may need to make significant adjustments to our business plan or significantly delay, scale back or discontinue the deployments of our facilities, including our fuel fabrication facilities and fuel recycling facilities, and/or some or all of our research and development programs. We may be required to cease operations or seek partners for our product candidates at an earlier stage than otherwise would be desirable and on terms that are less favorable than might otherwise be available. In the absence of additional capital, we may also be required to relinquish, license, or otherwise dispose of rights to technologies, powerhouses, or other products that we would otherwise seek to develop or commercialize on terms that are less favorable than might otherwise be available. If we are unable to secure additional capital, we may be required to take additional measures to reduce costs in order to conserve our cash in amounts sufficient to sustain operations and meet our obligations. These measures could have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our construction and delivery timeline estimates for our powerhouses, facilities, and other equipment may increase due to a number of factors, including the degree of pre-fabrication, standardization, on-site construction, long-lead procurement, contractor performance, plant pre-operational and startup testing and other site-specific considerations.
The success of our business will depend in large part on our ability to successfully construct our powerhouses and deliver heat and electricity to potential customers on-time and on-budget at guaranteed performance levels, which would tend to establish greater confidence in our subsequent customers. The success of our business will also depend in part on our ability to construct fuel fabrication and recycling facilities. There is no guarantee that all necessary components will be commercially available and substantial development of new supply chains might be necessary. Additionally, we cannot guarantee the level of quality of these third-party supplies or import and export requirements or limitations that might be stipulated by the NRC or U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) for the procurement of these components. There is no guarantee that the planned construction, delivery, and performance of our powerhouses or the equipment we need to fabricate and recycle fuel will be successful, timely, or on budget or that our third-party suppliers and contractors will deliver timely or on budget. There is no guarantee that plant pre-operational and startup testing, including tests mandated as license conditions by the NRC, will be successfully completed on-time. There can be no assurance that we will not experience delays, operational or process failures, and other problems during our first commercial deployment or any planned deployment thereafter. In addition, there can be no assurance that the construction of our fuel fabrication and recycling facilities will be completed at the cost and on the timeline we expect. We will depend on third-party contractors to perform many of the essential activities needed to deploy our powerhouses. We do not control the performance of these contractors and our contracts with them may not provide adequate remedies if they fail to perform. We do not currently employ any risk sharing structures to mitigate the risks associated with the construction, delivery and performance of our powerhouses or our fuel fabrication and recycling facilities. Any delays or setbacks we may experience for our first commercial delivery or in establishing our fuel fabrication or recycling
 
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facilities as well as any failure to obtain final investment decisions for future orders could have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows and could harm our reputation.
Our powerhouses, like many advanced fission reactors, are expected to rely on HALEU, in part or for a period of time until recycled waste fuel is available. HALEU is not currently available at scale. Access to a domestic supply of HALEU may require regulatory approval, and additional third-party development and investment and/or significant government assistance. If we are unable to access HALEU, or recycled waste fuel, our ability to manufacture fuel and to produce power will be adversely affected, which could have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Existing commercial nuclear infrastructure, including enrichment facilities and fuel fabrication facilities, were in most cases designed and are currently licensed to produce uranium in pellet and rod form, with enrichment of the isotope Uranium 235 up to 5%. Our powerhouses are expected to rely, in part, on HALEU which is not currently available at scale. Supplying fresh HALEU to our powerhouses could require certain modifications to, and NRC licensing of, existing commercial uranium enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities, none of which are currently owned or operated by us.
Presently, HALEU for our commercial powerhouses is only available for purchase from a few countries globally, and generally in small quantities. Currently, HALEU can only be sourced in the United States in limited quantities from the DOE, but the U.S. government is undertaking efforts to ensure the availability of initial HALEU quantities to support the establishment of long-term domestic commercial HALEU supply, transportation, and enrichment capabilities in the United States, per certain authorizations in the Energy Act of 2020, and the subsequent appropriation of $700 million in funding in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the “IR Act”). However, the HALEU program is in nascent stages and still under development by the DOE. As part of this program, on June 5, 2023, the DOE requested feedback on two draft requests for proposals to acquire HALEU, which DOE intends to finalize later this year. While it is possible that the U.S. government may release feedstock which is initially in the form of highly enriched uranium (“HEU”) that could be down-blended to HALEU levels for commercial uses, HEU can be processed to HALEU by only a limited number of licensed U.S. third parties and these third parties do not currently produce commercial levels of HALEU, and may require regulatory approvals and process changes in order to produce HALEU. There is risk of relevant parties within the nuclear power industry being slow to make any required facility infrastructure modifications or to obtain NRC-required licenses or approvals to enable such enrichment, and/or subsequent fuel fabrication, of HALEU fuel. Therefore, our ability to produce or obtain adequate HALEU supplies for our reactors on a predictable schedule and at predictable cost may be impaired, and activities like fuel-loading, testing, and ultimate operation of our powerhouses may be delayed, and we may be exposed to cost and schedule uncertainty, all of which may negatively affect the competitiveness of our powerhouses and the power and heat they produce.
Building a new fuel fabrication facility is challenging as a result of many factors, including regulatory and construction complexity, and may take longer or cost more than we expect.
We have not sought or received third-party cost estimates related to building our first-of-a-kind new commercial fuel fabrication facility but expect to do so in the future. Such third-party cost estimates may be significantly higher than our current estimates, which may affect the marketability, capital and operational costs of our powerhouses and our expectations with respect to our business plan and future profitability. Where these issues arise at such later stages of deployment, deployment could be subject to greater costs or be significantly delayed, which could materially and adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flow.
Building a new fuel recycling facility is challenging as a result of many factors, including regulatory and construction complexity, and may take longer or cost more than we expect.
Our estimates for a fuel recycling facility are based upon studies performed at the U.S. national labs. However, costs may be significantly higher than our current estimates, both in terms of the capital and operational costs of our recycling facilities and our expectations with respect to our business plan and future profitability. Although fuel recycling technology has been developed globally in the past, there is limited
 
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experience with licensing and constructing such facilities at commercial scale in the United States. As a result, the deployment of this facility could be subject to higher costs than expected or be significantly delayed, which could materially and adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flow.
Our supply base may not be able to scale to the production levels necessary to meet sales projections.
We do not have manufacturing assets and will rely on third party manufacturers and construction firms to build powerhouses, fuel fabrication facilities, recycling facilities, and associated equipment. While we are working to develop these capabilities and facilities internally these capabilities and the facilities involve risks including timeline, cost, and financing risk and even if successfully developed, will not be available for our earliest powerhouse deployments. Moreover, we are dependent on future supplier capability to meet production demands attendant to our forecasts. If our supply chain cannot meet the schedule demands of the market, our projected sales revenues could be materially impacted.
We rely on a limited number of suppliers for certain materials and supplied components, some of which are highly specialized and are being designed for first-of-a-kind or sole use in our powerhouses, fuel fabrication facilities, and fuel recycling facilities. We and our third-party vendors may not be able to obtain sufficient materials or supplied components to meet our manufacturing and operating needs or obtain such materials on favorable terms including price. Additionally, certain components may only be available from international suppliers.
We rely on a limited number of suppliers for certain materials and supplied components. We may not be able to obtain sufficient materials or supplied components to meet our manufacturing and operating needs, or obtain such materials on favorable terms, which could impair our ability to fulfill our orders in a timely manner or increase our costs of production.
We do not have significant prior experience in the manufacture of any of the components of fuel fabrication facilities, fuel recycling facilities, or power plants. We have done prototypic fabrication work and are working to establish manufacturing capabilities for components as well as the deployment of a manufacturing facility. Our suppliers’ ability to manufacture components for our fuel fabrication facilities, fuel recycling facilities, and powerhouses is dependent upon sufficient availability of materials and possibly other supplied components, some of which are highly specialized and are being designed for first-of-a-kind or sole use in our fuel fabrication facilities, fuel recycling facilities, and powerhouses. Any supply chain disruption incurred by our third-party suppliers or degradation in the quality and processes of our manufacturer partners, may result in delays, cost overruns or impairments to the development of our fuel fabrication facilities, fuel recycling facilities, and powerhouses.
Additionally, the imposition of sanctions, tariffs, or material changes in import and export requirements on a nation-by-nation basis, on materials or supplied components for our power plants could have a material adverse effect on our operations. Prolonged disruptions in the supply of any of our key materials or components, difficulty qualifying new sources of supply, implementing use of replacement materials or new sources of supply or any volatility in prices could have a material adverse effect on our ability to operate in a cost-efficient, timely manner. Such prolonged disruptions could also cause us to experience cancellations or delays of scheduled launches, customer cancellations or reductions in our prices and margins, any of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our business operations rely heavily on securing agreements with suppliers for essential materials and components which will be used to construct our powerhouses, fuel fabrication facilities, and recycling facilities.
The execution, termination, expiration, or failure to renew agreements with our suppliers, whether due to unforeseen circumstances, including, but not limited to, supplier insolvency and regulatory changes, pose significant risks to our supply chain. In the event that such agreements are not successfully maintained or replaced, we may encounter difficulties sourcing required materials and components, leading to deployment delays, increased costs, or an inability to meet customer demand. Any interruption or inability to maintain relationships with current and future suppliers, or failure to secure materials from alternative suppliers could adversely impact our business operations, financial performance, and reputation.
 
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Our ability to enter into agreements with potential new customers to provide power may be limited by certain terms of the February 2024 LOI, including right of first refusal and most favored nations provisions.
On February 16, 2024 (the “LOI Execution Date”), Legacy Oklo entered into the February 2024 LOI which confirms Equinix’s interest in purchasing power from our powerhouses to serve its data centers in the United States. The terms and conditions contained in the February 2024 LOI are expected to be further expanded specific to future deployments within a Power Purchase Agreement (each a “PPA”). The terms of a PPA are expected to include, but not be limited to, the following: (i) defining deployment locations; (ii) cost; (iii) jurisdictional and regulatory requirements; (iv) schedule; (v) engineering; (vi) manufacturing; (vii) operational performance; and (viii) detailed terms required to complete each location specific PPA. Subject to the terms of the February 2024 LOI, for a period of thirty-six (36) months following the LOI Execution Date, Equinix will have a continuing right of first refusal to purchase energy output produced by powerhouses developed by us in the United States, excluding any powerhouses supplying output to any governmental entity and powerhouses sited in Idaho, Arizona and Ohio (any non-excluded powerhouse being referred to herein as a “Covered Facility”) for power capacity of no less than 100 MW of energy output from any Covered Facility and up to 500 MW of energy output (the “ROFR Energy Total”) from any Covered Facility (the “ROFR”). It was further agreed, subject to the terms of the February 2024 LOI, that we will not enter into, effective on or after the date of the February 2024 LOI, any letter of intent, PPA or similar agreements or understanding with any current or prospective third-party customer that would grant to such third-party customer any more favorable agreement terms, material terms or most favored nation pricing than those set in the February 2024 LOI (the “MFN”). The application of the ROFR and MFN provisions may negatively impact our ability to achieve results consistent with our illustrative unit economics and may impair our ability to enter into power purchase agreements with additional customers, including by dampening potential interest from any such potential customers.
Customers may rescind or back out of non-binding agreements due to various reasons which could adversely affect our revenue streams, project timelines, and overall financial performance.
We have entered into and may enter into additional non-binding agreements, such as a memorandum of understanding or a letter of interest with customers for the purchase of power or to collaborate on projects. These memorandums of understanding and letters of interest are non-binding and the underlying contracts may not come to fruition as a result of among other things, changes in business priorities, financial constraints, regulatory changes, force majeure events, failure to obtain necessary approvals, or failure to meet contractual obligations by either party. The termination of these agreements could adversely affect our business. In addition, while we expect to enter into PPAs with Equinix in the future in accordance with the February 2024 LOI, no such PPAs have been entered into and no assurances can be given as to whether or when we may be able to do so. Additionally, loss of planned customers or projects may negatively impact our reputation and future business prospects.
We depend on key executives, and management, and other highly skilled personnel to execute our business plan and conduct our operations. A departure of key personnel could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our success depends, in significant part, on the continued services of our senior management team and on our ability to attract, motivate, develop, and retain a sufficient number of other highly skilled personnel, including engineering, science, manufacturing and quality assurance, regulatory affairs, finance, marketing and sales personnel. Our senior management team has extensive experience in the energy and manufacturing industries, and we believe that their depth of experience is instrumental to our continued success. The loss of any one or more members of our senior management team, for any reason, including resignation or retirement, could impair our ability to execute our business strategy and have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition if we are unable to successfully attract and retain qualified and highly skilled replacement personnel.
Our business plan requires us to attract and retain qualified personnel including personnel with highly technical expertise. Our failure to successfully recruit and retain experienced and qualified personnel could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our future success depends in part on our ability to contract with, hire, integrate, and retain highly competent nuclear reactor and fuels focused engineers and scientists, and other qualified personnel.
 
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Competition for the limited number of these skilled professionals is intense. If we are unable to adequately anticipate our needs for certain key competencies and implement human resource solutions to recruit or improve these competencies, our business, results of operations and financial condition would suffer. If we are unable to recruit and retain highly skilled personnel, especially personnel with sufficient technical expertise to develop our powerhouses, fuel fabrication facilities, recycling facilities, and fuel, we may experience delays, increased costs, and reputational harm.
Some of our management team has limited experience in operating a public company.
Some of our executive officers have limited experience in the management of a publicly traded company. Our management team may not successfully or effectively manage its transition to a public company that will be subject to significant regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under federal securities laws. Their limited experience in dealing with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to public companies could be a significant disadvantage in that it is likely that an increasing amount of their time may be devoted to these activities which will result in less time being devoted to our management and growth. We may not have adequate personnel with the appropriate level of knowledge, experience, and training in the accounting policies, practices or internal controls over financial reporting required of public companies in the United States. The development and implementation of the standards and controls necessary for us achieve the level of accounting standards required of a public company in the United States may require costs greater than expected. We will be required to expand our employee base and hire additional employees to support its operations as a public company, which will increase its operating costs in future periods.
If we fail to manage our growth effectively, we may be unable to execute our business plan which could have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
We intend to expand our operations significantly to address our target market. To properly manage our growth, we will need to hire and retain additional personnel, upgrade our existing operational management and financial and reporting systems, and improve our business processes and controls. Our future expansion will include:
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hiring and training new personnel;
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completing the designs, licensing, construction, and commissioning of our powerhouses;
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optimizing applications of our reactors to serve both electric power customers and a broad base of non-traditional industrial customers interested in utilizing the heat produced by our powerhouses;
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developing the supply chain necessary to supply components for our powerhouses;
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developing the processes and technologies to transport radiological materials;
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developing fuel fabrication capabilities and capacity;
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developing the operational capabilities and functions necessary to operate our powerhouses;
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controlling expenses and investments in anticipation of expanded operations;
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completing the design, licensing, construction, and commissioning of our fuel recycling facilities;
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upgrading the existing operational management and financial reporting systems and team to comply with requirements as a public company; and
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implementing and enhancing administrative infrastructure, systems, and processes.
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If our operations continue to grow, of which there can be no assurance, we will need to expand our sales and marketing, research and development, customer, and commercial strategy, permitting and licensing, products and services, manufacturing, supply, and operations functions. These efforts will require us to invest significant financial and other resources, including in industries and sales channels in which we have limited experience to date. We will also need to continue to develop our nascent manufacturing and operational systems and processes, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to scale the business as currently planned or within the planned timeframe. The continued expansion of our business may also require additional manufacturing and operational facilities, as well as space for administrative support, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to find suitable locations for such facilities.
 
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Our continued growth could increase the strain on our resources, and we could experience operating difficulties, including difficulties in hiring and training employees, finding capacity internally and with third parties to construct our powerhouses and related equipment, delays in production, challenges in scaling-up fuel recycling capacity, and difficulty sourcing adequate raw materials, such as uranium. These difficulties may divert the attention of management and key employees and impact financial and operational results. If we are unable to drive commensurate growth, these costs, which include lease commitments, headcount, and capital assets, could result in decreased margins, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
There is limited commercial operating experience for metal-fueled fast reactors of this type, configuration, and scale, particularly compared to that of the existing fleet of large light water reactors. This creates risks in cost and timeline estimates and lack of recent domestic commercial experience in terms of labor and supply chain and other factors may result in greater than expected construction cost, deployment timelines, maintenance requirements, differing power output and greater operating expense.
While our powerhouses will be actively managed through design reviews, prototyping, testing, involvement of external partners with subject matter expertise, and application of approaches utilized in the operation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II and other previously-operating reactors, we could still fail to identify latent design, manufacturing, construction, and operations issues early enough to avoid negative effects on production, fabrication, construction or ultimate performance of powerhouse and related technologies. Moreover, the cost and time associated with the construction and maintenance of our metal- fueled fast reactors may be greater than we expect because of a lack of a domestic labor force with relevant commercial experience and an inexperienced supply chain for this type of reactor. Where these issues arise at later stages of deployment, deployment could be subject to greater costs or be significantly delayed, which could materially and adversely affect our business.
The distributed generation industry is an emerging market and distributed generation may not receive widespread market acceptance or demand may be lower than we expect, which may make evaluating our business and future prospects difficult.
The distributed generation industry is still an emerging market in an otherwise mature and heavily regulated energy utility industry, and we cannot be sure that potential customers will accept distributed generation broadly, or our powerhouses specifically. Enterprises may be unwilling to adopt our powerhouses over traditional or competing power sources like distributed solar or electricity from the grid, for any number of reasons, including the perception that our technology or our company is unproven, lack of confidence in our business model, the unavailability of third-party service providers to operate and maintain the powerhouses, and lack of awareness of our powerhouses or their perception of regulatory or political headwinds.
Successful commercialization of new, or further enhancements to existing, alternative carbon-free energy generation technologies, such as adding carbon capture and sequestration/storage mechanisms to fossil fuel power plants, wind, solar, geothermal or fusion, may prove to be more cost effective or appealing to the global energy markets and therefore may adversely affect the market demand for our powerhouses, potentially adversely affecting our ability to successfully commercialize our powerhouses.
The expected market for our powerhouses may be superseded or rendered obsolete by new technology or the novel application of existing technology. Our estimates for the total addressable market and expectations with regards to certain unit economics are based on a number of internal and third-party estimates, including our potential contracted revenue, the number of potential customers who have expressed interest in heat and electricity from our powerhouses, the conversion rate of those potential customers into paying customers, assumed prices and production costs for our powerhouses and resulting power, our ability to leverage our current logistical and operational processes, assumptions regarding our technology and general market conditions. However, our assumptions and the data underlying our estimates may not be correct and the conditions supporting our assumptions or estimates may change at any time, reducing the predictive accuracy of these underlying factors. As a result, our performance as indicated by the illustrative unit economics provided in this prospectus, our estimates of the addressable market for our product and services, as well as the expected growth rate for such market, may prove to be incorrect. Any material change to our
 
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assumptions or expectations with respect to the foregoing, may have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows and could harm our reputation.
The market for alternative carbon-free energy generation technologies has not yet been established and may not achieve the potential we expect or may grow more slowly than expected. If demand for our powerhouses fails to develop sufficiently, our business and operations could suffer, and we would be unable to achieve or maintain profitability.
The market for alternative carbon-free energy generation technologies has not yet been established and may not achieve the potential we expect or may grow more slowly than expected. The viability and continued growth in demand for alternative carbon-free energy generation technologies, and in turn, our powerhouses, may be impacted by many factors outside of our control, including:
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market acceptance of nuclear power;
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cost competitiveness, reliability and performance of our powerhouses compared to conventional and renewable energy sources and products;
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availability and amount of government subsidies and incentives to support the development and deployment of our powerhouses;
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the extent to which the nuclear power industry and broader energy industries are deregulated to permit broader adoption of nuclear electricity generation;
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the cost and availability of key materials and components used in the production of our powerhouses;
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prices of traditional utility-provided energy sources; and
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the emergence, continuance, or success of, or increased government support for, other alternative energy generation technologies and products.
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Reduction in energy demand or changes in climate-related policies may change market conditions, reducing our product’s competitiveness and affecting our performance. If demand does not grow, our business and operations could suffer, which would have an adverse impact on our ability to grow our business and we could be unable to achieve or maintain profitability.
Competition from existing or new competitors or technologies domestically and internationally could cause us to experience downward pressure on prices, fewer customer orders, reduced margins, the inability to take advantage of new business opportunities, and the loss of market share.
We operate in a highly competitive energy market and are subject to competition based upon product design, performance, technology, pricing, quality, and services, from competing nuclear suppliers as well as from alternative means of producing electricity and/or heat. There are a number of advanced reactor designs and advanced reactor projects under development in the United States. Many of these designs are involved in pre-application review with the NRC. While we expect to try to maintain competitive pricing on our products and services that are directly comparable to products manufactured and services provided by others, our products and services will conform to more exacting specifications and may carry a higher price than competing non-nuclear products due to the highly regulated nature of the U.S. nuclear industry. Other companies providing competing technologies could capture customers or market share from us, which could have a material adverse effect on our business or financial condition.
For sales and/or deployments outside of jurisdictions with highly developed nuclear regulatory frameworks, some of our foreign competitors currently benefit from, and others may benefit in the future from, permissive regulatory and licensing regimes and/or from protective measures by their home countries where governments are providing financial support, including significant investments in the development of new technologies. Those competitors may have a competitive advantage if they are able to obtain approvals, or if they can demonstrate to potential customers the value and benefits of their products and services, particularly in jurisdictions that have less stringent nuclear regulatory requirements. These competitors may have access to greater sources of funding to develop and commercialize their power than we do, whether as a result of potential competitive advantages or from supportive national governments. This market environment may result in increased pressures on our pricing and other competitive factors.
 
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We believe our ability to compete successfully in designing, engineering, manufacturing, and operating our products and services at significantly reduced cost to customers does and will depend on a number of factors, which may change in the future due to increased competition. If we are unable to compete successfully, our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows would be adversely affected.
The cost of electricity and heat generated from our powerhouses may not be cost competitive with electricity and/or heat generated from other sources, which could materially and adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Many U.S. electricity markets price electric energy, heat, capacity, and/or ancillary services on a competitive basis, with market prices subject to substantial fluctuations. Other markets remain heavily regulated by state or local utility regulatory authorities, with power and heat purchase decisions by electric utilities subject to various competitiveness or prudence tests. As a result of competitive pressures, some electricity markets experience low marginal energy and heat prices at certain times due to a combination of subsidized generating resources, competitors with low-cost or no-cost fuel sources, or market-design features that create incentives for certain attributes or deliver revenue in unpredictable ways over time, and we may not be able to compete in these markets unless the benefits of our advanced fission power technology and business model are sufficiently valued. Even in markets that price reliable capacity on a long-term basis, there is no guarantee that advanced fission power will be sufficiently low-cost so as to clear auction-style capacity markets or to attract customers to sign power purchase agreements with us on commercially acceptable terms, and signing a power purchase agreement or clearing in any one year is no guarantee of similar outcomes in successive years. Moreover, powerhouses will likely serve a specific market segment of smaller distributed generation, remote application, or industrial customers, who may have lower cost power/​heat alternatives available to them, especially in the near-term. For instance, in recent months, a number of clean energy projects were cancelled due to, among other things, problems with supply chains, higher interest rates and lack of customer interest.
Given the relatively lower electricity prices and higher availability of power in the United States when compared to many international markets, the risk may be greater with respect to business in the United States. Regardless of jurisdiction, however, failure of the cost of electricity and heat generated from our powerhouses to be cost competitive with electricity and/or heat generated from other sources, will limit our ability to charge a premium relative to other energy sources, which could materially and adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Changes in the availability and cost of oil, natural gas and other forms of energy are subject to volatile market conditions that could adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
The availability and prices of oil, natural gas and other forms of energy are subject to volatile market conditions. These market conditions are affected by political, economic, and other factors beyond our control. Decreases in energy prices or increases in nuclear energy costs relative to other forms of energy, may adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. To the extent that these uncertainties cause suppliers and customers to be more cost sensitive or to adjust their business plans and operations, decreased energy prices may have an adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our investment in recycling may not provide the return we expect. The market for recycled nuclear fuel in the United States may never be established or may be smaller or grow more slowly than expected.
We are actively developing fuel recycling capabilities with the goal of deploying a commercial-scale fuel recycling facility in the United States by the 2030s. We currently expect to be the primary, but not the sole, users of the recycled fuel we plan to generate. Challenges that could impact timeline and cost might arise from necessary activities such as siting, obtaining of federal, state, and local permits and approvals, transportation, threatened litigation, access to used fuel for the purposes of recycling, and securing disposal solutions for waste. Our estimates for the total addressable market and expectations with regards to this potential line of business are based on several internal and third-party estimates, including those for facility deployment, licensing, capital and operational costs, and sales prices for the resulting recycled fuel. The timeline to
 
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scale-up and deploy the necessary technological processes are based upon assumptions regarding our technology and general market conditions. However, our assumptions and the data underlying these estimates may not be correct, and the conditions supporting our assumptions or estimates might change at any time, reducing the accuracy of these underlying assumptions. As a result, our investment in fuel recycling technology and this potential line of business may not provide any return, or the return we have projected. In addition, the market for recycling nuclear fuel in the United States has not yet been established and nuclear fuel recycling technologies such as ours have limited operational history and have not been proven at scale. Any material change to our assumptions or expectations with respect to the market for recycled nuclear fuel and the technology we plan to utilize may have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows, and could harm our reputation.
Our business plan involves the concurrent development of two configurations of our powerhouses (15 MWe and 50 MWe), and makes certain assumptions with respect to learnings, efficiencies and regulatory approvals as a result of this concurrent development approach which may not be accurate or correct. Any adverse change to these assumptions may have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our business plan to construct and operate our powerhouses is subject to the continued development of two configurations of our powerhouses (15 MWe and 50 MWe) and makes assumptions with respect to learnings, efficiencies and regulatory approvals as a result of this concurrent development approach. If such assumptions regarding the concurrent development of our powerhouses are not accurate, we may be unable to successfully introduce, market, and sell these configurations of our powerhouses in a timely and cost- effective manner, and properly position and/or price our products, our business, results of operations, or financial position could be materially impacted.
Our business plan may also include the development of other configurations of our powerhouses (100 MWe, or other sizes), and makes certain assumptions with respect to learnings, efficiencies, and regulatory approvals as a result of this new development approach which may not be accurate or correct. Any adverse change to these assumptions may have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition and results of operation and cash flows.
We compete in a market characterized by rapid technological advances, evolving regulatory standards in software technology and frequent new product introductions and enhancements. To succeed, we may also rely on the development of other configurations of our powerhouses (100 MWe, or other sizes). The development of other configurations of our powerhouses has inherent risks, including, but not limited to:
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higher than expected research and development costs;
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delays or unexpected costs in developing new configurations;
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ability or delays in obtaining regulatory approval;
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customers delaying purchase decisions in anticipation of new configurations;
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customer confusion and extended evaluation and negotiation time;
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educating our sales, marketing, and consulting personnel to work with new configurations;
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competition from earlier and more established entrants;
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market acceptance of earlier configurations; and
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the accuracy of assumptions about the nature of customer demand.
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If we are unable to successfully introduce, market, and sell other configurations of our powerhouses in a timely and cost-effective manner, and properly position and/or price our products, our business, results of operations, or financial position could be materially impacted.
We and our customers operate in a politically sensitive environment, and negative public and political perceptions of nuclear energy and radioactive materials could materially and adversely affect us, our customers, and the markets in which we operate.
Successful execution of our business model is dependent upon public support for nuclear power, in general, in the United States and other countries. The risks associated with uses of radioactive materials in
 
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our nuclear facilities and the public perception of those risks can affect our business. Opposition by third parties can delay or prevent the licensing and construction of new nuclear facilities and in some cases can limit the operation of nuclear facilities. Adverse public reaction to developments in the use of nuclear power could directly affect our business and indirectly affect our customers’ businesses. In addition, journalists, trade press, and other third parties, potentially including one or more of the agencies with regulatory jurisdiction over us, may publish statements that negatively affect the public or political perception of us. Adverse public opinion or political perceptions could result in increased regulatory requirements and costs or increase the likelihood that our operations are subject to liabilities and adverse claims. In the past, adverse public reaction, increased regulatory scrutiny and related litigation contributed to extended licensing and construction periods for new nuclear power plants, sometimes delaying construction schedules by decades or more, or even shutting down operations at already-constructed nuclear power facilities.
Incidents involving nuclear energy facilities in the United States or globally, including accidents, terrorist acts or other high profile events involving radioactive materials, could materially and adversely affect the public perception of the safety of nuclear energy, our customers and the markets in which we operate, and such adverse effects could potentially decrease demand for nuclear energy, increase regulatory requirements and costs or result in liability or claims that could materially and adversely affect our business.
Successful execution of our business model is dependent upon public support for nuclear power, in general, in the United States and other countries. If there is an incident affecting nuclear energy facilities in the United States or globally, public perception could be materially negatively impacted. Opposition by third parties can delay or prevent the licensing and construction of new nuclear facilities and in some cases can limit the operation of nuclear facilities. In the past, adverse public reaction, increased regulatory scrutiny and related litigation contributed to extended licensing and construction periods for new nuclear power plants, sometimes delaying construction schedules by decades or more, or even shutting down operations at already-constructed nuclear power facilities.
With respect to public perceptions, the effects of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that caused a radiological incident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan increased public opposition to nuclear power in some countries, resulting in a slowdown in, or, in some cases, a complete halt to new construction of nuclear power plants, an early shut down of existing power plants and a dampening of the favorable regulatory climate needed to introduce new nuclear power technologies. As a result of these events, some countries that were considering launching new domestic nuclear power programs delayed or cancelled the preparatory activities they were planning to undertake as part of such programs. Similarly, the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl increased fears of nuclear power and hindered the widespread acceptance of nuclear power. If a high-visibility or high-consequence nuclear incident, including the loss or mishandling of nuclear materials, or other event, such as a terrorist attack involving a nuclear facility, occurs, public opposition to nuclear power may increase dramatically, regulatory requirements and costs could become more onerous or prohibitory, and customer demand for heat, electricity, or fuel could suffer, which could materially and adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our ability to protect our patents and other intellectual property rights may be challenged and is not guaranteed. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights, our business and competitive position may be harmed.
We may not be able to prevent unauthorized use of our intellectual property, which could harm our business and competitive position. We rely upon a combination of the intellectual property protections afforded by patents, trademarks/service marks, copyrights and trade secret laws in the United States and other jurisdictions, as well as commercial agreements such as confidentiality agreements, assignment agreements, and license agreements to establish, maintain and enforce rights associated with our powerhouses and related proprietary technologies. Given that the underlying technology is many decades old, we primarily use patents in order to ensure that others cannot preclude us from using certain technologies or key design aspects. Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain and enforce patent protection for our powerhouses and related technologies, as well as our ability to operate without infringing or violating the proprietary rights of others. We either own or have significant license rights to certain intellectual property applicable to our powerhouses and fuel technology, including patent rights and pending patent applications
 
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on the same, and we will continue to file patent applications claiming new technologies directed to our powerhouses in the United States and in other jurisdictions based on several factors including, but not limited to, commercial viability. Monitoring unauthorized use of our intellectual property rights is difficult and costly, and the steps we have taken or will take to prevent misappropriation may not be sufficient.
As noted above, we also rely upon unpatented trade secret protection, unpatented know-how and continuing technological innovation to develop and help maintain our business and competitive position. We seek to protect our proprietary technology, in part, by entering into confidentiality agreements with our suppliers, subcontractors, venture partners, employees and consultants, and other third parties. However, we may not be able to prevent the unauthorized disclosure or use of our trade secrets, know-how, or information which we consider to be confidential, by the parties to these agreements, despite the existence generally of confidentiality provisions and other contractual restrictions. If any of the suppliers, subcontractors, venture partners, employees, and consultants, and other third parties who are parties to these agreements breach or violate the terms of any of these agreements, we may not have adequate remedies for any such breach or violation, and we could lose our trade secrets as a result. It is also possible that our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information could be obtained by third parties as a result of breaches of our physical or electronic security systems. Even where remedies are available, enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated our trade secrets is expensive and time consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. Courts outside the United States are sometimes less willing to protect trade secrets. Additionally, despite our efforts to protect our proprietary technology, our trade secrets could otherwise become known or be independently discovered by our competitors. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor or other third party, we would have no right to prevent them, or those to whom they communicate, from using that technology or information to compete with us.
The patent position of our powerhouses and fuel technologies is not a guarantee of protection or rights. During the patent prosecution process, a patent office may require us or our future licensors to narrow the scope of the claims of our or our licensors’ pending and future patent applications. This may limit the scope of patent protection and limit our or our future licensors’ ability to assert patent infringement if the patent is subsequently issued. In some cases, a patent may not be issued if we or our licensors are unable to overcome rejections from a patent office. By pursuing patent rights by filing a patent, we or our licensors may lose trade secrets that would have otherwise been protected had a patent not been sought and third parties may be able to exploit such published information in our patent application. Additionally, even if we obtain a patent in one jurisdiction (e.g., the United States), we cannot guarantee that we will obtain a corresponding patent in another jurisdiction (e.g., China) as patent laws differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Additionally, maintaining and enforcing patent rights can involve complex legal and factual questions and may be subject to litigation in some cases. For example, third parties may challenge the validity of our or our licensors’ patents based on prior art at a tribunal such as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in a federal court. Because we cannot assure that all of the potentially relevant prior art relating to our patents and patent applications has been found, third parties may prevail in invalidating a patent or preventing a patent application from being issued as a patent. Additionally, even if we or our licensors are able to maintain valid patents or prevail in patent challenges instituted by third parties, we or our licensors may still bear the risk of third parties “designing around” our technologies to avoid an intellectual property infringement claim.
Our patent applications may not result in issued patents, which may have a material adverse effect on our ability to prevent others from commercially exploiting products similar to ours. Patentability and patent scope involve complex legal and factual questions and the breadth of claims allowed may be uncertain. As a result, we cannot be certain that the patent applications that we file will result in patents being issued, or that our patents and any patents that may be issued to us will afford protection against competitors with similar technology. Numerous patents published pending patent applications and unpublished pending patent applications owned by others exist in the fields in which we have developed and are developing our technology. In addition to the risk of infringing those patents, patents and patent applications owned by others may also be used as a basis to invalidate our patents or prevent our patent applications from issuing as patents. Our patents may also be challenged as invalid under other prior art and/or be challenged as unenforceable. Furthermore, patent applications filed in foreign countries are subject to laws, rules and
 
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procedures that differ from those of the United States, and thus we cannot be certain that foreign patent applications related to issued U.S. patents will be issued.
Even if our patent applications succeed and we are issued patents in accordance with those applications, it is still uncertain whether these patents will be contested, circumvented, invalidated, or limited in scope in the future. The rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with meaningful protection or competitive advantages, and some foreign countries provide significantly less effective patent enforcement as compared to the United States. In addition, the claims of any patents that issue from our patent applications may not be broad enough to prevent others from developing technologies that are similar or that achieve results similar to ours. The intellectual property rights of others could also bar us from licensing and exploiting any patents that issue from our pending patent applications or future patent applications. Additionally, some of our technology has been developed with funding from the United States Department of Energy. Inventions conceived or first actually reduced to practice under agreements with the Department of Energy (“subject inventions”) grant the United States Government (“USG”) certain rights and impose specific obligations on our ability to practice and license these inventions. Specifically, the USG obtains a worldwide, nonexclusive, nontransferable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice or have the subject invention practiced for or on behalf of the USG and we are generally obligated to ensure that any products embodying or produced through the use of any subject invention will be manufactured substantially in the United States unless the USG determines that it is not commercially feasible to do so. Failure to abide by the United States competitiveness requirements for domestic manufacture of certain subject inventions may also cause us to forfeit and assign all rights to certain inventions to the United States Department of Energy. Another right the USG has in subject inventions — although it has never exercised such a right — is march-in rights whereby the USG may require us to license a patent on reasonable terms under very limited circumstances, such as if we or a licensee are not commercializing the invention or if there is a violation of the domestic manufacturing requirement in 35 U.S.C. § 204. In addition, patents issued to us may be infringed or designed around by others and others may obtain patents that we need to license or design around, either of which would increase costs and may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
We currently enjoy only limited geographical protection with respect to certain issued patents and trademarks and may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights, our business and competitive position may be harmed.
We do not have worldwide patent rights for our powerhouses and related proprietary technologies because there is no such thing as a worldwide patent or “international patent rights.” We also do not have worldwide trademark protection for our brand for similar reasons. Accordingly, we may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights in certain jurisdictions and their legal systems. Filing, prosecuting, and defending patents on our powerhouses and related technologies worldwide can pose several challenges.
First, procuring patent rights in multiple jurisdictions may be cost prohibitive because individual patent offices in different jurisdictions will have to independently examine each patent application. Therefore, costs such as examination fees, translation fees and attorneys’ fees are considered when deciding whether to pursue patent protections in a given jurisdiction. We or our licensors will also have the continued obligation of paying maintenance fees periodically to avoid patents from becoming abandoned or lapsed. Second, the breadth of claims in patents may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For instance, certain patent offices may require narrower claims, resulting in patent rights that are less extensive. Further, as noted above, we may not be able to obtain patents in some jurisdictions even if we obtain patents in other jurisdictions.
Accordingly, our competitors may operate in countries where we do not have patent protection and can freely use our technologies and discoveries in such countries to the extent such technologies and discoveries are publicly known or disclosed in countries where we do have patent protection.
Many countries have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled to grant licenses to third parties. Many countries also limit the enforceability of patents against government agencies or government contractors. In these countries, the patent owner may have limited remedies, which could materially diminish the value of such patent. If we or any of our licensors are forced to grant a license to third parties with respect to any patents relevant to our business, our competitive position may be impaired, and our business and financial condition may be adversely affected.
 
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We may need to defend ourselves against intellectual property infringement claims, which may be time-consuming and could cause us to incur substantial fees and costs.
Companies, organizations or individuals, including our existing and future competitors, may hold or obtain patents, trademarks/service marks or other intellectual property rights that would prevent, limit or interfere with our ability to develop our intellectual property and make, use, develop, import, offer to sell or sell the power and heat generated by our powerhouses, our powerhouses, and related technology, which could make it more difficult for us to operate our company. From time to time, we may receive inquiries from holders of patents or trademarks/service marks inquiring whether we are infringing their proprietary rights. Companies, organization or individuals, including our existing and future competitors, may also seek court declarations that they do not infringe our intellectual property rights. Companies holding patents or other intellectual property rights similar to our technology may bring proceedings alleging infringement of such rights or otherwise asserting their rights and seeking licenses. In addition, if we are determined to have infringed a third party’s intellectual property rights, we may be required to do among other things, one or more of the following: (i) cease making, using, offering to sell, selling or importing our powerhouses or the power and heat generated by our powerhouses that incorporate the challenged intellectual property; (ii) pay substantial damages; (iii) pay for and obtain a license from the holder of the infringed intellectual property right, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all; or (iv) redesign part or all of our technology. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us and our failure or inability to obtain a license to the infringed technology, our business, prospects, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. In addition, any litigation, or claims, whether or not valid, could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and management’s focus and attention.
We also anticipate licensing patents and other intellectual property from third parties, and we may face claims that the use of this intellectual property infringes the rights of other third parties. In such cases, we may seek indemnification from the licensors under our license contracts with those licensors or other damages. However, our rights to indemnification or damages may be unavailable or insufficient to cover our costs and losses, depending on our use of the technology, whether we choose to retain control over conduct of the litigation, and other factors.
We may be subject to claims of ownership and other rights to our patents and other intellectual property by third parties.
Our confidentiality and intellectual property assignment agreements with our employees, consultants, and contractors generally provide that inventions conceived by the party in the course of rendering services to us will be our exclusive intellectual property. While we require our employees, consultants, and contractors to assign such intellectual property to us in the event that the intellectual property is not automatically assigned (e.g., as work made for hire), those agreements may not be honored and obligations to assign intellectual property may be challenged or breached. Moreover, there may be some circumstances, where we are unable to negotiate for such ownership rights or that others misappropriate those rights.
We may be subject to claims that former employees, collaborators, or other third parties have an interest in our patents or other intellectual property as an owner, a joint owner, a licensee, an inventor, or a co- inventor. In the latter two cases, the failure to name the proper inventors on a patent application can result in the patents issuing thereon being unenforceable. Inventorship disputes may arise from conflicting views regarding the contributions of different individuals named as inventors, the effects of foreign laws where foreign nationals are involved in the development of the subject matter of the patent, conflicting obligations of third parties involved in developing our patented technology or as a result of questions regarding co- ownership of potential joint inventions. Litigation may be necessary to resolve these and other claims challenging inventorship and ownership. Alternatively, or additionally, we may enter into agreements to clarify the scope of our rights in such intellectual property. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose exclusive ownership of, or right to use or license valuable intellectual property. Such an outcome could have a material adverse effect on our business. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management and other employees.
 
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We are subject to considering, quantifying, and protecting against information technology and cyber security threats that could have adverse effects, including regulatory enforcement consequences, on our business and results of operations.
In the ordinary course of business, we collect, store, and transmit confidential information (including but not limited to intellectual property, proprietary business information and personal information). It is critical that we do so in a secure manner to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of such confidential information. We also have outsourced elements of our operations to third parties, and as a result we manage a number of third-party contractors who have access to our confidential information. Regarding actual powerhouse deployments, we are subject to the NRC’s regulations in this area, the violation of which could carry regulatory enforcement action.
Despite the implementation of security measures, our internal information technology systems and those of our contractors and consultants are potentially vulnerable to breakdown or other damage or interruption from service interruptions, system malfunction, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures, as well as security breaches from inadvertent or intentional actions by our employees, contractors, consultants, business partners, and/or other third parties, or from cyber- attacks by malicious third parties (including the deployment of harmful malware, ransomware, denial-of- service attacks, social engineering and other means to affect service reliability and threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information), which may compromise our system infrastructure or lead to data leakage. As part of our regular review of potential risks, we analyze emerging cyber security threats to us and our contractors, consultants, business partners and other third parties as well as our plans and strategies to address them. The Board, which has oversight responsibility for cyber security risks, is expected to be briefed by management on such analyses. Additionally, the Board is responsible for overseeing the adequacy of management’s conduct of threat environment and vulnerability assessments, management of cyber incidents, pursuit of projects to strengthen internal cyber security and the cyber security of our suppliers and other service providers, work with the company’s privacy and legal teams, coordination with the company’s operations teams to evaluate the cyber security implications of our products and offerings, and coordination of efforts to monitor, detect, and prevent future cyber threats. In addition, the Board, or a duly authorized committee thereof, will annually review our risk profile with respect to cybersecurity matters. To the extent that any disruption or security breach were to result in a loss of, or damage to, our data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and reputational damage and the further development and commercialization of our products could be delayed.
Furthermore, significant disruptions of our internal information technology systems or security breaches could result in the loss, misappropriation, and/or unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of, or the prevention of access to, confidential information (including, but not limited to, intellectual property, proprietary business information, export-controlled information, and personal information), which could result in financial, legal, business, and reputational harm to us. For example, any such event that leads to unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of personal information, including personal information related to our employees, could harm our reputation directly, compel us to comply with federal and/or state breach notification laws and foreign law equivalents, subject us to mandatory corrective action, and otherwise subject us to liability under laws and regulations that protect the privacy and security of personal information, which could result in significant legal and financial exposure and reputational damages that could potentially have an adverse effect on our business.
Macroeconomic Risks Relating to Our Business
We may experience a disproportionately larger impact from inflation and rising costs.
Recently, inflation has increased to its highest level in decades. Inflation has resulted in, and may continue to result in, higher interest rates and capital costs, higher shipping costs, higher material costs, supply shortages, increased costs of labor and other similar effects. Although the impact of material cost, labor, or other inflationary or economically driven factors will impact the entire nuclear and energy transition industry (including renewable sources of electricity, like solar and wind), the relative impact will not be the same across the industry, and the particular effects within the industry will depend on a number of factors,
 
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including material use, technology, design, structure of supply agreements, project management and others, which could result in significant changes to the competitiveness of our technology and our ability to construct and operate our fuel fabrication facilities, fuel recycling facilities, and powerhouses, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Uncertain global macroeconomic and political conditions could materially adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our results of operations could be materially affected by economic and political conditions in the United States and internationally, including inflation, deflation, interest rates, availability of capital, energy and commodity prices, trade laws and the effects of governmental initiatives to manage economic conditions.
Potential customers may delay or decrease spending on our powerhouses and related services as their business and budgets are impacted by economic conditions. The inability of potential customers to pay us for our powerhouses and related services may adversely affect our earnings and cash flows.
The ongoing military conflict in Ukraine has escalated tensions between the United States, and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”) allies on one hand, and Russia on the other. The United States and other NATO member states, as well as some non-member states, have imposed sanctions against Russia and certain Russian banks, enterprises, and individuals. Although there are currently no sanctions on Russian companies supplying HALEU, sourcing HALEU from Russia presents a potential reputational risk and supply chain risk if sanctions are imposed at a later time. These circumstances have impacted the commercial availability of HALEU and increasing the cost of uranium enrichment services to produce HALEU, and any future additional sanctions and any resulting conflict between Russia, the United States and NATO countries could potentially increase the adverse impact on the price of enrichment services and on our future operations.
Further, the ongoing military conflict resulting sanctions and related countermeasures by NATO states, the United States and other countries have led to, and are likely to lead to additional, market disruptions, including significant volatility in commodity prices, credit, and capital markets, as well as supply chain interruptions for equipment, which could have an adverse impact on our operations and financial performance. Global supply chain disruptions have increasingly affected both the availability and cost of materials, component manufacturing and deliveries. Disruptions such as military conflicts, sanctions, and other countermeasures between nations, as well as any escalation in tension between nations, may result in delays in equipment deliveries and cost escalations that could adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Our cost estimates are highly sensitive to broader economic factors, and our ability to control or manage our costs may be limited.
Capital and operating costs for the deployment of any energy infrastructure, and especially a first-of-a-kind powerhouse like the Aurora, are difficult to project, inherently variable and are subject to significant change based on a variety of factors including site specific factors, customer off-take requirements, regulatory oversight, operating agreements, supply chain availability, supply chain availability effects on reactor and power plant performance, inflation and other factors. Opportunities for cost reductions with subsequent deployments are similarly uncertain. While we believe our cost estimates are reasonable, they may increase significantly through design maturity, when accounting for supply chain availability, fabrication costs, as we progress through the regulatory process, or as a result of other factors, including unexpected cost increases that particularly affect our powerhouses. To the extent cost reductions are not achieved within the expected timeframe or magnitude, powerhouses, like the Aurora, may not be cost competitive with alternative technologies, which may have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows and could harm our reputation.
The direct and indirect impact on us and our customers from severe weather and other effects of climate change could adversely affect our financial condition, operating results, and cash flows.
Our operations and properties, and those of our customers, may in the future be adversely impacted by flooding, wildfires, high winds, drought, and other effects of severe weather conditions that may be caused
 
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or exacerbated by climate change. These events can force our customers to suspend operations at impacted properties and may result in significant damage to such properties. Even if these events do not directly impact us or our customers, they may indirectly impact us and our customers through increased insurance, energy, or other costs. In addition, although the ongoing transition to non-carbon-based energy is creating significant opportunities for us and our customers, the transition also presents certain risks, including macroeconomic risks related to higher energy costs and energy shortages, among other things. These direct and indirect impacts from climate change could adversely affect our financial condition, operating results, supply chain and cash flows.
The occurrence of adverse events, cancellations of significant projects, delays in project timelines, adjustments in cost structures, and other negative developments announced by competitors could have an impact on our operations, financial performance, and future prospects.
The occurrence of newsworthy events in the nuclear industry as a whole, including, but not limited to, the delay of major projects, inflated cost adjustments, fluctuations in product pricing strategies, cancellations of public offerings, customer withdrawals, or disruptions in supply chain may adversely affect our business in several ways, including:
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Negative news or events associated with industry peers may lead to decreased investor confidence in the sector, which could impact the broader stock market performance of companies operating within the industry, including us. This could result in fluctuations or declines in our stock price irrespective of our internal performance.
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Adverse events in competitor firms may alter the competitive landscape, affecting market share dynamics, pricing strategies, and overall positioning within in the industry. This could impact our ability to retain or expand our market presence.
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Changes in market dynamics influenced by competitors’ actions, such as inflated cost adjustments or potential cancellations, could have ripple effects on our financial stability and profitability, influencing our financial metrics and potentially impacting investor perceptions.
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While we implement risk mitigation strategies and highlight our unique business approach and how it differentiates us from our peers, there is no guarantee that we will be insulated from the adverse effects of such events and the occurrence of any of these events could negatively impact our business operations and financial condition.
Risks Relating to Compliance with Law, Government Regulation and Litigation
The nature of our business requires us to interact with various governmental entities, making us subject to the policies, priorities, regulations, mandates and funding levels of such governmental entities and we may be negatively or positively impacted by any change thereto.
We are subject to a wide variety of laws and regulations relating to various aspects of our business, including with respect to use and possession of radioactive materials; design, manufacture, operations, marketing, and export of nuclear technologies; employment and labor; tax; data security of the operational and information technology we use; health and safety; zoning and environmental issues. Laws and regulations at the foreign, federal, state, and local levels may change and may be interpreted in different ways, especially in relation to new and emerging industries, and we cannot always reasonably predict the impact from, or the ultimate cost of compliance with, current or future regulatory or administrative changes. While we monitor these developments and devote a significant amount of management’s time and external resources towards compliance with these laws, regulations, and guidelines, we cannot guarantee that these measures will be satisfactory to regulators or other third parties, such as our customers, who may also be subject to extensive governmental regulation.
We may need to expend substantial efforts to comply with any new and changing relevant and applicable laws and regulations, which may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management time and attention. Moreover, changes in law, the imposition of new or additional regulations or the enactment of any new or more stringent legislation that impacts our business could require us to change the way we operate and could have a material adverse effect on our sales, profitability, cash flows,
 
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financial condition, and lead to regulatory delays that could impact our ability to obtain licenses, certificates, authorizations, permits, certifications from regulatory agencies and/or any other type of regulatory approval.
Failure to comply with these laws may result in civil and criminal penalties or private lawsuits, or the suspension or revocation of those regulatory approvals, which would prevent us from operating our business. With respect to our powerhouses, fuel fabrication and fuel recycling, we require regulatory approval from the NRC to construct and operate the facilities, and any additional local and state permitting requirements, as needed. Failure to comply with these laws, obtain the required regulatory approvals, or receive exemptions from such regulations, as needed, could result in regulatory enforcement, violations, fines, penalties, or the inability to operate our commercial deployments. Any delays in regulatory approvals could also adversely affect our ability to meet construction and operation timelines and thereby affect our financial performance.
Our powerhouses, fuel fabrication, and fuel recycling activities are subject to regulations in all jurisdictions related to nuclear safety, environmental, and financial qualification, among other requirements. Regulatory approvals, such as construction permits and operating licenses issued by the NRC, are necessary for us to construct and operate our powerhouses, fuel fabrication and fuel recycling facilities. Our plans to construct and operate these facilities relies on timely receipt of such regulatory approvals. Such regulatory approval processes may be subject to change, can be technically challenging to address, may result in the imposition of conditions that impact the financial viability of our facilities, and may also provide opportunities for third parties to lodge objections or file petitions against the licensing of our facilities.
The U.S. government’s budget deficit and the national debt, as well as any inability of the U.S. government to complete its budget or appropriations process for any government fiscal year could have an adverse impact on our business, prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
The U.S. government’s budget deficit and the national debt, as well as any inability of the U.S. government to complete its budget process for any government fiscal year and consequently having to shut down or operate on funding levels equivalent to its prior fiscal year pursuant to a “continuing resolution,” could have an adverse direct or indirect impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Considerable uncertainty exists regarding how future budget and program decisions will unfold, including the energy spending priorities of the U.S. government, what challenges budget reductions will present for the energy industry and whether annual appropriations bills for all agencies will be enacted by the U.S. government in a given fiscal year and thereafter due to many factors, including but not limited to, changes in the political environment, including before or after a change to the leadership within the government administration, and any resulting uncertainty or changes in policy or priorities and resultant funding. The U.S. government’s budget deficit and the national debt could have an adverse impact on our business, prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows in a number of ways, including the following:
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The U.S. government could reduce or delay its spending on, reprioritize its spending away from, or decline to provide funding for the government programs in which we participate;
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U.S. government spending could be impacted by alternate arrangements to sequestration, which increases the uncertainty as to U.S. government spending priorities and levels; and
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We may experience declines in revenue, profitability, and cash flows as a result of reduced or delayed orders or payments or other factors caused by economic difficulties of our customers and prospective customers, including U.S. federal, state and local governments.
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These factors may become exacerbated by rising interest rates as more U.S. government spending must be appropriated to servicing the national debt. Furthermore, we believe continued budget pressures could have serious negative consequences for the nuclear energy industry and the customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and communities that rely on companies in the nuclear energy industry. Budget and program decisions made in this environment would have long-term implications for us and the entire nuclear energy industry.
 
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Our powerhouses, recycling facilities and fuel fabrication facilities will be highly regulated by the U.S. government, including the NRC and potentially the DOE, as well as foreign, state, and local governments. We have not received any approval or licensing to date or submitted our updated custom combined license application (“COLA”) to the NRC, and approval or licensing of these designs or facilities, and the time of such approval or licensing, if any, is not guaranteed. Our planned international expansion will subject us to additional U.S. and foreign regulations.
Our commercial powerhouses, including our planned plants in Idaho and Ohio, commercial recycling facilities, commercial fuel fabrication facilities will be subject to NRC licensing and approvals, from initial approval or licensing through construction and operations and into decommissioning. They may also be highly regulated by other U.S. federal and state-level governmental authorities and regulatory bodies in other jurisdictions in which we may establish operations. Under the Atomic Energy Act and the implementing NRC regulations, members of the public, state, or tribal governments may request a public hearing opposing the issuance of any NRC permit or license, or challenging portions of the license or permit application or of the NRC’s review. Certain NRC actions also include provision for a mandatory administrative hearing regardless of whether any contentions are submitted in conjunction with the action. These hearing processes may delay or prevent the issuance of required regulatory approvals (e.g., permits or licenses) for our powerhouses, recycling facilities, and fuel fabrication facilities. Additionally, any facilities, commercial or otherwise, that may be located on DOE land may incur additional oversight from the DOE. Our planned fuel facility in Idaho will require oversight from the DOE and will require approvals prior to construction and operation. Any deployments that require both NRC and DOE oversight might introduce additional uncertainties and complexities. Additionally, state, or other local jurisdictions may have or could elect to develop regulations specific to the siting, construction, operation, and decommissioning of commercial nuclear facilities or the transportation of radiological materials that could impact our deployment timelines and business model. Our planned international expansion will increase our exposure to U.S. export control laws as well as laws and regulations of foreign jurisdictions the impact of which cannot be predicted at this time. Exports to other countries may require cooperation from the United States or other governments and may result in shortages and delays if not accomplished within assumed timelines or costs. Additionally, we may require U.S. approvals in order to import certain materials and components which may be predominantly produced outside of the United States.
We must obtain governmental licenses to transport, possess, and use radioactive materials, including isotopes of uranium, in our powerhouses, fuel facility, and recycling facility operations. These are generally granted as part of operations licensing, but failure to obtain or maintain, or delays in obtaining, such licenses could impact our ability to generate electricity and/or heat for our customers and have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Notwithstanding our custom COLA to the NRC or other actions to date, no powerhouse in the Aurora product family has been licensed or approved by the NRC or any other regulatory body. Additionally, no commercial nuclear reactor that is not water cooled is currently operating in the U.S. under an NRC-issued license, and no advanced fission technology has been approved for commercial operation by the NRC. The NRC has also not yet established an oversight program for advanced reactors and therefore it is unclear what level and scope oversight the NRC may choose to implement during power operations. The implementation of an NRC oversight program could substantially affect our operation of our commercial facilities.
Related to operations, the NRC has the authority to issue notices of violation for violations of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, executing the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the “Atomic Energy Act”), NRC’s regulations and conditions of licenses, certificates of compliance, and orders. The NRC has authority to impose civil penalties (the maximum amount of which is adjusted annually to account for inflation) or additional requirements and to order cessation of operations for violations of these requirements. Penalties under the NRC regulations and applicable agency guidelines could include substantial fines, imposition of additional requirements, or withdrawal or suspension of licenses or certificates and criminal penalties. Any penalties imposed on us could adversely affect our results of operations and liquidity.
Legacy Oklo started working with the NRC to pilot a COLA application with a new structure in 2018 and formally submitted a COLA in 2020. The COLA was partially reviewed by the NRC and denied without prejudice in 2022, with the NRC identifying additional information it required. While we have been
 
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actively working to address technical, policy, and programmatic matters ahead of the submission of our updated COLA, we cannot assure you that we will be able to meet our expected timeline or any timeline for which the NRC will accept our COLA for review or subsequently approve our COLA.
Our planned rapid deployment includes the planned use of a reference and subsequent COLA approach, or R-COLA and S-COLA, where NRC safety decisions from the R-COLA are incorporated by reference or copied into the staff evaluation for the S-COLA. This is designed to enable review efficiencies for subsequent COLAs. However, this approach has not yet been used to review COLAs for nuclear reactors that are not water-cooled or for custom COLAs; accordingly, whether this approach will result in the anticipated review efficiencies is still unclear.
If the NRC disagrees with our licensing approach, the technical bases supporting the nuclear safety and environmental impact evaluations, or finds policy issues associated with the COLA, the initial and subsequent COLA processes could take longer than currently expected, or a license may not be granted at all, which could materially and adversely affect our business. Further, the NRC could impose conditions in a license that are not acceptable to us or our customers, which could materially and adversely affect our business. Any delays, conditions or unexpected requirements may increase costs for us or our customers and may result in uncertainty regarding the ability to deploy our technology in a predictable way, which may adversely impact our competitiveness.
The existing NRC framework has not been applied to license a nuclear fuel recycling facility for commercial use, and there is no guarantee that the NRC will support the development of our proposed nuclear fuel recycling facility on the timeline we anticipate or at all.
The NRC has never licensed a commercial nuclear fuel recycling facility. As such, the existing NRC regulatory framework has not been applied to license a nuclear fuel recycling facility for commercial use. There is no guarantee that the NRC will support the development of our proposed nuclear fuel recycling facility on the timeline we anticipate or at all.
Unresolved spent nuclear fuel storage and disposal policy issues and associated costs could have a significant negative impact on our plans to recycle spent fuel as a potential fuel source for our powerhouses. Additionally, U.S. policy related to storage and disposal of used fuel from our power plant and/or negative customer perception of risks relating to these policies could have a significant negative impact on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
During the licensing process, a nuclear power plant operator must indicate how it will decommission its power plant and must have a “standard agreement” with the DOE related to the storage of the fuel waste created during the operating life. Therefore, although we expect to use existing used nuclear fuel waste as well as recycling our own used fuel for decades into the future, the requirement for the first of the kind facility to establish the disposal of fuel may create challenges related to timeline and optimal use of the fuel asset.
Specifically, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires the DOE to provide for the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel (“SNF”) and associated high-level nuclear waste (“HLW”). In 1987, Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to identify Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, as the only site that the DOE could consider for a permanent repository. The DOE has since failed to pursue the licensing of Yucca Mountain. While operators are currently able to successfully sue the DOE for costs incurred as a result of its continued failure to provide for permanent disposal, there is a potential in the future that operators will have to bear the costs of developing and maintaining these spent fuel storage facilities.
As such, the establishment of a national repository for the storage and/or permanent disposal of SNF, such as the one previously considered at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the timing of such a facility’s opening and the ability of such a facility to accept waste from our powerhouses, and any related regulatory action, could impact the costs associated with our powerhouses’ storage and/or disposal of SNF/HLW. Moreover, an inability to utilize SNF for the purpose of developing fuel for the powerhouse, either due to policy issues or technical limitations, could also impact the costs associated with the powerhouse. These issues could be material to our operations if potential customers view waste disposal as problematic, detrimental or a negative factor when considering purchasing power produced by our reactors.
 
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Our operations and business plans could be significantly impacted by changes in federal, state, and local government policies and priorities.
The current environment of bipartisan political support of advanced nuclear power technologies at the U.S. federal level could change. Changes in support, in policies, or in priorities by the legislative or executive branch could have impacts on the leadership at the NRC, the DOE, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or any other federal agency which affects policy related to nuclear power. Each of these agencies themselves may experience changes in policies and priorities which impact our operations and business plans. Federal, state, and local policies and priorities could affect regulatory oversight, supply chain availability, tax and other financial incentives or costs, availability of financing, labor force initiatives or restrictions, and many other possible areas.
The NRC also has the authority to issue new regulatory requirements or to change existing requirements. Changes to the regulatory requirements, could require us to incur additional expenses to retrofit any of our nuclear facilities under the NRC’s jurisdiction to bring them into compliance or otherwise adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
DOE regulations and additional applicable Idaho state laws and regulations might also apply to the Aurora powerhouse we plan to site at the Idaho National Laboratory. This could introduce substantial complications and time delays for deployment. Currently, the Company has been granted a site use permit and provisional acceptance for a specific location to site the Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory; the provisional acceptance clearly states that there is still significant uncertainty for the final site location for the Aurora at Idaho National Laboratory, which could impact our deployment timelines. Changes in leadership and vision for Idaho National Laboratory could result in the DOE deprioritizing siting the Aurora powerhouse, resulting in significant time delays for deployment. Our first-of-a-kind Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory is subject to certain regulations, contracts, permits, and approvals by the DOE and the state of Idaho. Site characterization and non-safety related site preparation and construction requires National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) review by the DOE for the Aurora at Idaho National Laboratory. The Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency have existing regulations, relationships, and agreements with the DOE — Idaho with which we must comply, thus these or other Federal agencies may be consulted during the NEPA review process.
Additionally, local, and tribal authorities could elect to interfere with the Aurora powerhouse deployment in Idaho. The Aurora powerhouse may be the first commercially owned and operated nuclear power plant in the state of Idaho. The state of Idaho or other local jurisdictions could elect to develop regulations specific to the siting, construction, operation, and decommissioning of commercial nuclear power plants or the transportation of radiological materials that could impact the deployment timeline of our first-of-a-kind Aurora powerhouse. The DOE in Idaho has standing agreements and relationships with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and the Idaho Department of Emergency Management. Changes in these agreements could also impact the deployment timeline.
Portions of the Ohio sites that Oklo is investigating for deployment are currently owned by the DOE and are under decommissioning and decontamination for transfer to the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative. Similar to the Idaho National Laboratory site, the deployment timeline is impacted by the DOE regulations, processes, approvals, and requirements. The state of Ohio or local authorities could elect to change their processes for regulations of nuclear materials or commercial nuclear power. Additionally, certain aspects of our current fuels research and development activity take place within DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. These activities are subject to DOE regulation, i.e., authorization, and contractual requirements. DOE may place additional requirements or restrictions on us which could adversely affect our business.
Additionally, changes in federal, state, or local government policies and priorities can impact our nuclear fuel operations. These could include changes in interpretations of regulatory requirements, increased inspection or enforcement activities, changes in budgetary priorities, changes in tax laws and regulations and other government actions or inaction. Any of these local, state, and federal agencies may have the authority to impose civil penalties and additional requirements, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
 
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Changes in governmental agency budgets as well as staffing shortages at national laboratories and other governmental agencies may lengthen our estimated timelines for regulatory approval and construction.
Certain of our powerhouses, fuel fabrication, and recycling facilities are dependent upon collaborations with national laboratories and/or various regulatory approvals. Government agency budgets and staffing are driven by the priorities of leadership at federal agencies as well as policy makers. Changes in governmental agency budgets, personnel, and any resulting staffing shortages may delay our powerhouses, fuel fabrication, and recycling facilities and delay or prevent the issuance of required regulatory approvals (e.g., permits or licenses) for our nuclear facilities.
Operating a nuclear power plant in an unusual environment whether due to unusual siting or in an industrial application has additional risks and costs compared to conventional electric power and heat applications.
We focused on a technology with inherent safety characteristics and have designed powerhouses such that we anticipate being able to serve customers in unusual environments, which we believe is a key gap in current United States energy infrastructure. These unusual environments may include areas that are far away from typical urban infrastructure or resources, permafrost, with higher seismic activity, in closer proximity to population centers, etc. Additionally, remote environments are often in harsh climates and can be difficult to transport to and travel to, when required during operations. As such, deployments in unusual environments could bear additional risks and costs that may exceed our business projections or have surprising or unpredicted impacts on costs and schedules for deployment and/or operation and/or maintenance of our powerhouses, including costs associated with the licensing process, configuration control of the plant, minimum operating staff, training, security infrastructure, radiation protection, government reporting, and nuclear insurance, all of which may be cost prohibitive or reduce the competitiveness of technology.
We also currently have several government awards involving cost-share related to recycling R&D work, which could be affected by our failure to comply with certain laws and regulations.
As a recipient of federal funds under grants and cooperative agreements, in addition to our ordinary contractual obligations, we must comply with various statutes and regulations applicable to entities that perform awards in support of government entities. Many of these additional obligations are contained in the regulations in 2 CFR Part 200 as amended by 2 CFR Part 910, which regulate the formation, administration, and performance of non-procurement federal financial assistance awards (e.g., grants and cooperative agreements). We must also comply with various national policy requirements that are prescribed by statute, Executive Order, policy guidance issued by the Executive Office of the President, or other regulations.
Our performance under our U.S. government awards and our compliance with the terms of those awards and applicable laws and regulations are subject to periodic audit, review, and investigation by various agencies of the U.S. government, and the current environment has led to increased regulatory scrutiny and sanctions for non-compliance by such agencies generally.
Compliance with these laws and regulations affects how we do business and may impose added costs on our business. Failure to comply, however, may lead to civil or criminal penalties, including whole or partial suspension or termination of our U.S. government awards, and/or suspension or debarment from contracting with federal agencies.
Our business is subject to stringent U.S. export control laws and regulations. Unfavorable changes in these laws and regulations or U.S. government licensing policies, our failure to secure timely U.S. government authorizations under these laws and regulations, or our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could have a material adverse effect on the company and our ability to expand and thereby affect our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
The inability to secure and maintain required export licenses or authorizations could negatively impact our ability to compete successfully or market our powerhouses outside the United States. For example, if we were unable to obtain or maintain licenses to export nuclear technology or certain hardware to a particular country, we would be effectively prohibited from exporting our powerhouses to or operating our powerhouses
 
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in that country, which would limit the number of customers to those in the United States and in countries where we are able to secure licenses (or where licenses are not required).
Failure to comply with export control laws and regulations could expose us to civil or criminal penalties, fines, investigations, more onerous compliance requirements, loss of export privileges, debarment from government contracts or limitations on our ability to enter into contracts with the U.S. government. Any changes in export control regulations or U.S. government licensing policy, such as that necessary to implement U.S. government commitments to multilateral control regimes, may restrict our market size.
We may become involved in litigation that may materially adversely affect us.
From time to time, we may become involved in various legal proceedings relating to matters incidental to the ordinary course of our business, including intellectual property, commercial, product liability, employment, class action, whistleblower and other litigation and claims, and governmental and other regulatory investigations and proceedings. Such matters can be time-consuming, divert management’s attention and resources from the operation of our business and cause us to incur significant expenses or liability or require us to change our business practices. Because of the potential risks, expenses, and uncertainties of litigation, from time to time, we may settle disputes, even where we believe that we have meritorious claims or defenses. Because litigation is inherently unpredictable, we cannot assure you that the results of any of these actions will not have a material adverse effect on our business.
We are subject to laws and regulations governing the use, transportation, and disposal of toxic, hazardous and/or radioactive materials. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations could result in substantial fines and/or enforcement actions.
Both in the United States and abroad, our operations will be subject to a variety of federal, state, local environmental, health and safety laws and regulations governing, among other things, air emissions, wastewater discharges, management and disposal of hazardous, non-hazardous, and radioactive materials and waste and remediation of releases of hazardous materials. Additionally, we are responsible for decommissioning of facilities where we conduct, or previously conducted, commercial, NRC-licensed, operations.
We may be liable if we fail to comply with federal, state, and local environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. Failing to comply with such laws and regulations, including failing to obtain any necessary permits, could result in substantial fines or enforcement actions. This might require us to stop or curtail operations or conduct or fund remedial or corrective measures, make additional investments into safety- related improvements or perform other actions. The enactment of more stringent laws, regulations or permit requirements or other unanticipated events may arise in the future and adversely impact the market for our products, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. We could incur substantial costs as a result of a violation of, or liabilities under, environmental laws.
We will seek to cover gaps in nuclear liability coverage in our contracts, but such coverage may not always be possible as an operator of nuclear reactors, and such liability could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We will seek to cover gaps in nuclear liability coverage in our contracts, but such coverage may not always be possible as an operator of nuclear reactors. The costs of defending a claim arising out of a nuclear incident or precautionary evacuation not otherwise covered by insurance or an indemnity, and any damages awarded as a result of such claim, could adversely affect our business prospects, financial conditions, results of operations and cash-flows. Prospective future customers may also require that we comply with their own unique requirements relating to their compliance with policies, priorities, regulations, controls, and mandates, including provision of data and related assurance for environmental, social, and governance related standards or goals, and such compliance may add cost and timeline uncertainty or risk.
In the United States, the nuclear liability law codified at 42 U.S.C. 2210 (along with subsequent amendments, the “Price-Anderson Act”). The Price-Anderson Act and implementing NRC regulations at 10 CFR Part 140 economically channel liability to certain licensees (such as operators of nuclear reactors) for
 
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third-party offsite damages caused by a nuclear incident or a precautionary evacuation due to a possible or actual nuclear incident by requiring these licensees to maintain financial protection that provides robust coverage for such damage. Outside of the United States, international nuclear liability conventions and national nuclear liability laws legally channel liability for offsite nuclear damage to the nuclear reactor operator and require operators to maintain insurance up to the established liability limits. In all jurisdictions which subscribe to international nuclear liability principles (essentially, all countries with operating nuclear reactors and many with research reactors), operator liability for offsite nuclear damage is covered by mandatory insurance. However, if we were to operate in a country that does not have a nuclear liability regime or one where the regime does not meet international nuclear liability standards, we could be financially liable for damages arising from nuclear incidents or evacuation, which could have an adverse effect on our business prospects, financial conditions, results of operations and cash-flows. Further, there is no international nuclear liability regime that covers every jurisdiction and thus gaps exist where we could be liable for transboundary nuclear damage in countries that are not party to a nuclear liability treaty.
Neither the Price-Anderson Act nor international nuclear liability conventions and national domestic nuclear liability laws cover on-site loss or damage to property due to a nuclear incident. Rather, most nuclear regulators (including the NRC) require nuclear operators to maintain on-site property damage insurance. If an incident resulting in onsite property damage is not otherwise covered by the mandatory insurance policy maintained at the facility, then we could be potentially liable for damages arising from such incident, which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
Our powerhouses are designed to meet the compliance requirements for the applicable use and in the geographies in which we have received regulatory approvals. There is possibility that our future customers may require us to comply with their unique requirements relating to their compliance with policies, priorities, regulations, controls, and mandates, including provision of data and related assurance for environmental, social, and governance related standards or goals. Any requirements for customization or modification would likely increase our time-to-market for our powerhouses which could materially adversely impact our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flow.
Risks Relating to Our Capital Resources
The amount of time and funding needed to bring our powerhouses to market and to develop our recycling and fuel fabrication facilities may significantly exceed our expectations, and we may need to make significant adjustments to our business plan or significantly delay, scale back or discontinue the deployments of our facilities and/or some or all of our research and development programs and will need to seek additional capital.
Bringing our powerhouses to market as well as developing our recycling and fuel fabrication facilities will take a significant amount of time and funding. Any shortfall in research, development and other funding, any delay in achieving fuel development milestones, uncertainty in regulatory licensing timelines or adverse public reaction to developments in the use of nuclear power by special interest groups, community groups and state and local government agencies leading to environmental litigation or other legal proceedings could result in significant delays and cost overruns and could adversely affect our ability to construct and operate our powerhouses, recycling facilities or fuel fabrication facilities. At this stage, we cannot accurately predict the amount of funding or the time required to successfully construct and operate our powerhouses, recycling facilities or fuel fabrication facilities. The actual cost and time required to construct and operate our powerhouses, recycling facilities or fuel fabrication facilities or to bring our nuclear fuel to market at scale may vary significantly from our current forecasts depending on, among other things:
•
the results of our research and product development efforts;
​
•
changes in the focus and direction of our research and product development programs;
​
•
competitive and technological advances;
​
•
the cost of filing, prosecuting, defending, and enforcing claims with respect to patents;
​
•
the regulatory approval process;
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•
the fuel recycling process;
​
•
the fuel fabrication process;
​
 
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•
limitations and impediments to supply chains;
​
•
adverse public reaction to the developments in the use of nuclear power;
​
•
availability and cost of HALEU; and
​
•
other costs associated with commercialization of these technologies.
​
Any material change to our assumptions or expectations with respect to our timeline and funding needs, or any material overruns or other unexpected increase in costs or delays, may have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows and could harm our reputation.
In addition, we may need to make significant adjustments to our business plan or significantly delay, scale back or discontinue the deployments of our facilities, including our fuel fabrication facilities and fuel recycling facilities, and/or some or all of our research and development programs and will need to seek additional capital. Depending on our available capital resources, we may need to delay or discontinue expected near-term expenditures, which could materially impact our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows by limiting our ability to pursue some of our other strategic objectives and/or reducing the resources available to further develop our design, sales, and manufacturing efforts.
In order to fulfill our business plan, we will require additional funding in addition to any funding resulting from the Business Combination. Such funding may be dilutive to our investors, may result in a decline in the market price of your shares, and no assurances can be provided as to the availability or terms of any such funding. Any such funding and the associated terms will be highly dependent upon market conditions and the progress of our business at the time we seek such funding.
Legacy Oklo funded its operations since inception primarily through the issuance and sale of equity and equity-linked instruments, such as the Legacy Oklo SAFEs, and preferred stock. We cannot be certain when or if our operations will generate sufficient cash to fully fund our ongoing operations or the growth of our business. We intend to continue to make investments to support our business, and we will likely need additional capital, which may require us to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds in a number of circumstances. Such equity and debt financings may not require stockholder approval.
Additional financing may not be available on terms favorable to us, if at all. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to invest in future growth opportunities, which could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. If we incur additional debt, the debt holders would have rights senior to holders of our Common Stock to make claims on our assets, and the terms of any debt could restrict our operations, including our ability to pay dividends on our Common Stock. Furthermore, to the extent we issue additional equity securities, including under employee benefit plans, stockholders will experience dilution, the relative voting strength of each previously outstanding share of common stock may be diminished, the market price of the shares of our Common Stock may decline, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our Common Stock. Because our decision to issue securities in the future will depend on numerous considerations, including factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing, or nature of any future issuances of debt or equity securities. As a result, our stockholders bear the risk of future issuances of debt or equity securities reducing the value of our Common Stock and diluting their interests.
Our business plan includes the use of investment tax credits, production tax credits or other forms of government funding to finance the commercial development of our powerhouses, and there is no guarantee that our projects will qualify for these credits or that government funding will be available in the future.
Our business plan depends in part on federal, state, and local government policies and incentives that support the development, financing, ownership, and operation of renewable energy generation projects.
These policies and incentives include investment tax credits, production tax credits, accelerated depreciation, renewable portfolio standards, feed-in-tariffs and similar programs, renewable energy credit mechanisms, and tax exemptions. If these policies and incentives are changed or eliminated, or we are unable to use them, it could result in a material adverse impact on our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
 
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Changes in tax laws could adversely affect our business prospects and financial results.
We will be subject to taxes in the United States and certain foreign jurisdictions. Due to economic and political conditions, tax rates in various jurisdictions, including the United States, may be subject to change. Our future effective tax rates could be affected by changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities and changes in tax laws or their interpretation. We may be subject to income tax audits by various tax jurisdictions. An adverse resolution by one or more taxing authorities could have a material impact on our finances. Further, we may be unable to utilize any net operating losses in the event a change in control is determined to have occurred.
There is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern, and we may require additional future funding.
Based on Legacy Oklo’s recurring losses and our expectations to incur significant expenses and negative cash flows until at least 2026 or 2027, management has identified substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern and we may require significant additional funding to continue our operations through commercialization. If we are unable to continue as a going concern, we may be forced to liquidate our assets and the values we receive for our assets in liquidation or dissolution could be significantly lower than the values reflected in our financial statements.
We do not expect to generate meaningful revenue unless and until we are able to finalize development of and commercialize the Aurora product line, and we may not be able to do so on our anticipated timetable, if at all. We expect our expenses and capital expenditures to increase in connection with our ongoing activities, including developing and advancement of the Aurora product line, obtaining a COLA and completing our manufacturing preparation and trials. In addition, we expect to incur additional costs associated with operating as a public company. Certain costs are not reasonably estimable at this time, and we may require additional funding and our forecasts anticipate certain customer-sourced income that is not guaranteed.
We will likely need additional capital from external sources and may seek to raise capital through private or public equity or debt financings or through other sources of financing. Adequate additional funding may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. Our failure to raise capital as and when needed could have a negative impact on our financial condition and our ability to pursue our business strategies. If we raise additional funds by issuing equity securities, our stockholders will experience dilution. If we raise additional capital through debt financing, we may be subject to covenants that restrict our operations including limitations on our ability to incur liens or additional debt, pay dividends, repurchase our securities, make certain investments, and engage in certain merger, consolidation, or asset sale transactions. Any debt financing or additional equity that we raise may contain terms that are not favorable to us or our stockholders and members. If the needed financing is not available, or if the terms of financing are less desirable than we expect, we may be required to delay, scale back or terminate some or all of our research and development programs.
Historically, Legacy Oklo’s primary source of funding to support its operations has been from capital raises. We have concluded substantial doubt exists about our ability to continue as a going concern within one year after the date the financial statements are issued.
Our actual operating results may differ significantly from our guidance. Any failure to successfully implement our operating strategy or the occurrence of any of the events or circumstances set forth in this “Risk Factors” section could result in our actual operating results being different from our guidance, and the differences may be adverse and material.
From time to time, we may release guidance in our quarterly earnings releases, quarterly earnings conference calls, or otherwise once we are a public company, regarding our future performance that represents our management’s estimates as of the date of release. This guidance, which includes forward- looking statements, will be based on projections prepared by our management. These projections are not prepared with a view toward compliance with published guidelines of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and neither our registered public accountants nor any other independent expert or outside
 
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party compiles or examines the projections. Accordingly, no such person expresses any opinion or any other form of assurance with respect to the projections.
Projections are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while presented with numerical specificity, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, such as public health emergencies and the Russia- Ukraine conflict, and are based upon specific assumptions with respect to future business decisions, some of which will change. The rapidly evolving market in which we operate may make it difficult to evaluate our current business and our future prospects, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. We intend to state possible outcomes as high and low ranges which are intended to provide a sensitivity analysis as variables are changed. However, actual results will vary from our guidance, and the variations may be material. The principal reason that we release guidance is to provide a basis for our management to discuss our business outlook as of the date of release with analysts and investors. We do not accept any responsibility for any projections or reports published by any such persons. Investors are urged not to rely upon our guidance in making an investment decision regarding our Common Stock.
Any failure to successfully implement our operating strategy or the occurrence of any of the events or circumstances set forth in this “Risk Factors” section could result in our actual operating results being different from our guidance, and the differences may be adverse and material.
Our financial results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter.
We expect our revenue and operating results to vary from quarter to quarter. We may incur significant operating expenses during the start-up and early stages of large contracts and may not be able to recognize corresponding revenue in that same quarter. We may also incur additional expenses when contracts are terminated or expire and are not renewed. We may also incur additional expenses when customers are newly acquired. Additionally, payments due to us from our customers may be delayed for a variety of reasons, and these delays could cause significant fluctuations from quarter to quarter.
Additional factors that may cause our financial results to fluctuate from quarter to quarter include those addressed elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section and the following factors, among others:
•
the terms of customer contracts that affect the timing of revenue recognition;
​
•
variability in demand for our services and solutions;
​
•
commencement, completion, or termination of contracts during any particular quarter;
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•
timing of shipments and product deliveries;
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•
timing of award or performance incentive fee notices;
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•
timing of significant bid and proposal costs;
​
•
the costs of remediating unknown defects, errors, or performance problems of our product offerings;
​
•
variable purchasing patterns under blanket purchase agreements and other indefinite delivery/​indefinite quantity contracts;
​
•
restrictions on and delays related to the export of nuclear articles and services;
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•
costs related to government inquiries;
​
•
strategic decisions by us or our competitors, such as acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs and joint ventures;
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•
strategic investments or changes in business strategy;
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•
changes in the extent to which we use subcontractors;
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•
seasonal fluctuations in our staff utilization rates;
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•
changes in our effective tax rate, including changes in our judgment as to the necessity of the valuation allowance recorded against our deferred tax assets; and
​
•
the length of sales cycles.
​
 
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Significant fluctuations in our operating results for a particular quarter could cause us to fall out of compliance with the financial covenants related to our debt, which if not waived, could restrict our access to capital and cause us to take extreme measures to pay down the debt, if any.
Changes in our accounting estimates and assumptions could negatively affect our financial position and results of operations.
We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These accounting principles require us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of our financial statements. We are also required to make certain judgments that affect the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during each reporting period. We periodically evaluate our estimates and assumptions including, but not limited to, those relating to business acquisitions, revenue recognition, recoverability of assets including customer receivables, contingencies, valuation of financial instruments, stock-based compensation, and income taxes. We base our estimates on historical experience and various assumptions that we believe to be reasonable based on specific circumstances. These assumptions and estimates involve the exercise of judgment and discretion, which may evolve over time in light of operational experience, regulatory direction, developments in accounting principles and other factors. Actual results could differ from these estimates as a result of changes in circumstances, assumptions, policies or developments in the business, which could materially affect our consolidated financial statements.
Reports published by analysts, including projections in those reports that differ from our actual results, could adversely affect the price and trading volume of our Common Stock.
Securities research analysts may establish and publish their own periodic projections for us. These projections may vary widely and may not accurately predict the results we actually achieve. Our share price may decline if our actual results do not match the projections of these securities research analysts. Similarly, if one or more of the analysts who write reports on us downgrades our stock or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our share price could decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to publish reports on us regularly, our share price or trading volume could decline. Moreover, if no analysts commence coverage of us, the market price and volume for our Common Stock could be adversely affected.
Power purchase agreements are a key component to our anticipated business model for sales of power, and customers may be able to void all or part of these contracts under certain circumstances, which could significantly impact our financial performance and operational stability. We may need to find substitute customer power and/or heat offtake or may need to cancel licensing work related to particular customers and sites as a result of changes in customer demand or contracts with customers.
In our power purchase agreements with customers, we will seek to protect ourselves from risks, but there is no guarantee that we can prevent all customers from voiding our contracts in full or in part.
Customers might have the right to terminate or renegotiate these contracts based on a number of factors that will be specified on an agreement-by-agreement basis. Given the risk that a customer might void, or attempt re-negotiation, of a power purchase agreement, we might ultimately expend resources on a deployment that does not realize the expected revenue. Depending on the stage of development of the deployment we may cancel licensing and procurement efforts, losing our investment to that point, or we may be forced to find substitute customers, which may not ultimately purchase energy on as favorable of terms, reducing the expected revenue of the deployment. Attracting new customers could be time-consuming, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to secure new power purchase agreements on terms that are as favorable as the original agreements.
Fluctuations in energy prices could impact the viability of our power purchase agreements, especially if the contract prices are fixed or based on long term projections. Rapid changes in the energy markets might render our pricing less competitive or less profitable.
 
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Power purchase agreements may include penalties for not delivering sufficient electric and/or heat energy on schedule, which may result in liabilities and reductions in cash flow.
A term occasionally used in power purchase agreements involves penalties that may come into effect if either party fails to meet the stipulations of the relevant agreement, including penalties for the power producer, in this case the Company, if adequate power is not provided on time. Such penalties may adversely impact our profitability and financial stability. Additionally, such penalties might lead to cash flow reductions as our financial resources are diverted to remediate. Reduced cash flow may inhibit our ability to invest in growth opportunities, fund operational expenses, service debt, among other financial impacts. Incurring penalties might put us at a competitive disadvantage to our competitors.
There is limited precedent for independent developer construction and operation, use of power purchase agreements, and other behind-the-meter or off-grid business models relating to deployment of fission power plants.
The deployment of fission power plants by independent developers, as well as the utilization of power purchase agreements and other behind-the-meter or off-grid business models, is relatively novel in the energy industry. As a result, our business faces certain risks and challenges due to the novelty of the business model. The absence of prior experiences may introduce uncertainties that could impact our business projections and subsequent performance. For example, it might be challenging to secure financing from traditional lenders and investors who prefer more traditional nuclear business models. Additionally, the novelty of this business approach, or the perception thereof, might lead to higher perceived risks and, consequently, less favorable financing terms, or higher uncertainty risk assessments that might increase the potential for cost overruns and delays of deployment.
The unfamiliarity of independent developer fission power plants and alternative business models might affect market acceptance. Potential customers and stakeholders might exhibit hesitation or reluctance to adopt our approach, which could slow down market penetration and revenue growth.
This approach is novel to the nuclear industry and if proven successful, may be adopted by competitors. Increased competition could erode profit margins and hinder our market expansion.
Some of our powerhouses may rely on interconnections to distribution and transmission facilities owned and operated by third parties, meaning that those specific deployments are exposed to interconnection and transmission facility development and curtailment risks. These curtailment risks could impede delivery of our electricity, could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and operational performance, could occur without compensation and could reduce our ability to fully capitalize on the potential of those specific deployments.
Insurers may perceive higher risks associated with limited precedent projects, potentially leading to increased insurance premiums or difficulties in obtaining adequate coverage.
We incurred significant transaction costs, and these transaction costs add risk to our ability to be a going concern and/or act on our business plan.
We have incurred significant, non-recurring costs in connection with consummating the Transactions. All expenses incurred in connection with the Transactions, including all legal, and other fees, expenses, and costs, will be for the account of the party incurring such fees, expenses, and costs. Our aggregate transaction expenses as a result of the Transactions were approximately $43.314 million.
Risks Related to being a Public Company
The market price of our Common Stock could be highly volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance. You may lose some or all of your investment.
The trading price of our Common Stock is likely to be volatile and subject to significant fluctuations. The trading price of our Common Stock will depend on many factors, including those described in this “Risk Factors” section, many of which are beyond our control and may not be related our operating performance. You may not be able to resell your shares at an attractive price due to a number of factors.
 
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Factors affecting the trading price of our Common Stock may include:
•
market conditions in the broader stock market in general, or in our industry in particular;
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•
actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly financial results or the quarterly financial results of companies perceived to be similar to us;
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•
changes in the market’s expectations about our operating results;
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•
the public’s reaction to our press releases, other public announcements and filings with the SEC;
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•
speculation in the press or investment community;
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•
actual or anticipated developments in our business, competitors’ businesses or the competitive landscape generally;
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•
our operating results failing to meet the expectation of securities analysts or investors in a particular period;
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•
the timing of the achievement of objectives under our business plan and the timing and amount of costs it incurs in connection therewith;
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•
the failure to achieve regulatory approvals to support our business on the timeline it expects, or at all;
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•
the failure of non-binding letters of intent to be converted into definitive purchase agreements at the rate that we expect or at all;
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•
the failure to retain our future customers;
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•
changes in financial estimates and recommendations by securities analysts concerning us or the market in general;
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•
operating and stock price performance of other companies that investors deem comparable to us;
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•
changes in laws and regulations affecting our business;
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•
commencement of, or involvement in, litigation or investigations involving us;
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•
changes in our capital structure, such as future issuances of securities or the incurrence of additional debt;
​
•
the volume of our Common Stock available for public sale;
​
•
any major change in our Board or management;
​
•
sales of substantial amounts of our common stock by our directors, officers or significant stockholders or the perception that such sales could occur;
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•
general economic and political conditions such as recessions, interest rates, “trade wars” and acts of war or terrorism; and
​
•
other risk factors listed under “Risk Factors.”
​
Furthermore, the stock markets in general have experienced extreme volatility, which has sometimes been unrelated to the operating performance of the issuer. The trading price of our Common Stock may be adversely affected by third parties trying to drive down or drive up the market price. Short sellers and others, some of whom post anonymously on social media, may be positioned to profit if our stock declines or otherwise exhibits volatility, and their activities can negatively affect our stock price and increase the volatility of our stock price. These broad market and industry factors may seriously harm the market price of our Common Stock, regardless of our operating performance.
In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market prices of particular companies’ securities, securities class action litigations have often been instituted against these companies. Litigation of this type, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources. Any adverse determination in any such litigation or any amounts paid to settle any such actual or threatened litigation could require that we make significant payments.
 
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Our stock price may be exposed to additional risks because we became a public company through a “de-SPAC” transaction. There has been increased focus by government agencies on such transactions, and we expect that increased focus to continue, and we may be subject to increased scrutiny by the SEC and other government agencies on holders of our securities as a result, which could adversely affect the price of our Common Stock.
The NYSE may not continue to list our Common Stock, which could limit investors’ ability to make transactions in our Common Stock and subject us to additional trading restrictions.
We cannot assure you that our Common Stock will continue to be listed on the NYSE in the future. In order for our Common Stock to remain listed on the NYSE, we must maintain certain financial, distribution and stock price levels.
If the NYSE delists our Common Stock from trading on its exchange and we are not able to list our Common Stock on another national securities exchange, we expect our Common Stock could be quoted on an over-the-counter market. If this were to occur, we could face significant material adverse consequences, including:
•
a limited availability of market quotations for our Comm Stock;
​
•
reduced liquidity for our Common Stock;
​
•
a determination that our Common Stock is a “penny stock,” which would require brokers trading in such securities to adhere to more stringent rules, could adversely impact the value of our Common Stock and/or possibly result in a reduced level of trading activity in the secondary trading market for our Common Stock;
​
•
a limited amount of news and analyst coverage; and
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•
a decreased ability to issue additional securities or obtain additional financing in the future.
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Sales of a substantial number of our shares of Common Stock in the public market by the Selling Holders or by our existing stockholders could cause the price of our shares of Common Stock to fall.
The Selling Holders named herein are comprised of Sponsor, certain legacy investors in Legacy Oklo, and certain of our directors and executive officers and their affiliates. The following table provides the number of shares of Common Stock offered hereby by each Selling Holder, as well as the historical weighted-average price paid per share of Common Stock by each Selling Holder and the potential profit earned by each Selling Holder. The table is based on the Company’s internal records and is for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon beyond its illustrative nature. The table uses the closing price of the Company’s Common Stock on September 17, 2024 of $6.30. The table illustrates that some Selling Holders may realize a positive rate of return on the sale of the Resale Securities covered by this Prospectus even if the market price per share of Common Stock is below $10.00 per share, in which case the public stockholders may experience a negative rate of return on their investment.
 
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Selling Securityholder
​ ​
Number of Shares
Offered for Resale
​ ​
Historical Weighted-
Average Price Paid
Per Share
($)
​ ​
Potential Profit
Based on
Current
Trading Price
($ in millions)
​
Jacob DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 13,253,926 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 83.50 ​ ​
Caroline Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 12,923,654 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 81.42 ​ ​
AltC Sponsor LLC
​ ​ ​ ​ 13,950,000 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.0412 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 73.36 ​ ​
Michael Klein
​ ​ ​ ​ 13,950,000 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.0412 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 73.36 ​ ​
Mithril II, L.P.
​ ​ ​ ​ 7,710,768 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 4.6600 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 12.65 ​ ​
Data Collective IV, L.P.
​ ​ ​ ​ 8,196,971 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 4.6500 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 13.53 ​ ​
Saxon Road Capital Management IV, LLC
​ ​ ​ ​ 130,635 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.9200 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.57 ​ ​
Hydrazine Capital II, L.P.
​ ​ ​ ​ 3,732,479 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1.9200 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 16.35 ​ ​
Paul Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 567,203 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 3.57 ​ ​
Julie Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 567,203 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 3.57 ​ ​
Isaac Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2.26 ​ ​
Melissa Cochran
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2.26 ​ ​
Michael DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 538,484 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 3.39 ​ ​
Barbara DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 538,484 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 3.39 ​ ​
Jason DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2.26 ​ ​
Joshua DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2.26 ​ ​
Mary DeWitte
​ ​ ​ ​ 358,990 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 0.0001 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2.26 ​ ​
Sales of a substantial number of our shares of Common Stock in the public market by the Selling Holders and/or by our other existing stockholders, or the perception that those sales might occur, could depress the market price of our shares of Common Stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. We are unable to predict the effect that such sales may have on the prevailing market price of our shares of Common Stock.
The sale of all of the securities being offered in this prospectus could result in a significant decline in the public trading price of our Common Stock. Despite such a decline in the public trading price, some of the Selling Holders may still experience a positive rate of return on the securities they purchased due to the differences in the purchase prices described above and elsewhere in this prospectus. Public stockholders may not be able to experience the same positive rates of return on Common Stock they purchase due to the low price at which the Selling Holders purchased their shares.
Resales of our Common Stock may cause the market price of our Common Stock to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
The market price of shares of our Common Stock could decline as a result of substantial sales of our Common Stock, particularly by our significant stockholders, a large number of shares of our Common Stock becoming available for sale or the perception in the market that holders of a large number of shares intend to sell their shares.
Pursuant to the Registration Rights Agreement and the Sponsor Agreement, (i) certain holders of shares of our Common Stock issued as consideration pursuant to the Business Combination are restricted from selling or transferring such shares for a period that begins at the Closing and that ends on the date that is 180 days after the Closing Date and (ii) each of the Insiders and certain key pre-Closing holders of Legacy Oklo capital stock, including our Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Hydrazine Capital, have agreed not to transfer (a) 40% of such holder’s shares for a period of 12 months after the Closing, unless the closing share price of our Common Stock equals or exceeds $12.00 per share for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period commencing after the Closing Date, (b) 30% of such holder’s shares for a period of 24 months after the Closing, unless the closing share price of our Common Stock equals or exceeds $14.00 per share for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period
 
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commencing after the Closing Date and (c) 30% of such holder’s shares for a period of 36 months after the Closing, unless the closing share price of our Common Stock equals or exceeds $16.00 per share for 20 trading days within any 60 consecutive trading day period commencing after the Closing Date. However, following the expiration of such lock-up periods, the Sponsor and the other lock-up parties will not be restricted from selling the Company securities held by them, other than by applicable securities laws. As such, sales of a substantial number of shares of our Common Stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our Common Stock.
Sales of a significant number of shares of our Common Stock in the public market could harm our market price and make it more difficult for us to raise funds through future offerings of our Common Stock. As additional shares of our Common Stock become available for resale in the public market, the supply of our Common Stock will increase, which could decrease its price. In addition, if our stockholders sell substantial amounts of our Common Stock in the public market, it could create a circumstance commonly referred to as an “overhang,” in anticipation of which the market price of our Common Stock could fall. The existence of an overhang, whether or not sales have occurred or are occurring, could also make it more difficult for us to raise additional financing through the sale of equity or equity-related securities in the future at a time and price that we deem reasonable or appropriate.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish or cease publishing research or reports about us, our business, or our market, or if they change their recommendations regarding our Common Stock adversely, then the price and trading volume of our Common Stock could decline.
The trading market for our Common Stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts may publish about us, our business and operations, our market, or our competitors.
Securities and industry analysts do not currently, and may never, publish research on us. If no securities or industry analysts commence coverage of us, our stock price and trading volume would likely be negatively affected. If any of the analysts who may cover us change their recommendation regarding our stock adversely, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, the price of our Common Stock would likely decline. If any analyst who may cover us were to cease coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on it, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
There is no guarantee that an active and liquid public market for shares of our Common Stock will develop.
A liquid trading market for our Common Stock may never develop. In the absence of a liquid public trading market:
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you may not be able to liquidate your investment in shares of our Common Stock;
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you may not be able to resell your shares of common stock at or above the price attributed to them in the Business Combination;
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the market price of shares of our common stock may experience significant price volatility; and
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there may be less efficiency in carrying out your purchase and sale orders.
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Our certificate of incorporation designates a state court within the State of Delaware, to the fullest extent permitted by law, as the sole and exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings that may be initiated by our stockholders, which could limit the ability of our stockholders to choose the judicial forum for disputes with us or with our directors, officers or employees.
Under our certificate of incorporation, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the sole and exclusive forum is a state court within the State of Delaware (or, if no state court located within the State of Delaware has jurisdiction, the federal district court for the District of Delaware) for:
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any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf;
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any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our current or former directors, officers or employees to us or our stockholders;
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any action arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL or our certificate of incorporation or bylaws (as either may be amended, restated, modified, supplemented or waived from time to time); or
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any action asserting a claim against us or any of our directors or officers or other employees governed by the internal affairs doctrine.
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For the avoidance of doubt, the foregoing provisions of our certificate of incorporation do not apply to any action or proceeding asserting a claim under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act. Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act or the rules and regulations thereunder. Accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such claims. To prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, our certificate of incorporation provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act.
Although investors cannot waive compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder, any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in shares of our capital stock will be deemed to have notice of, and consented to, the provisions of our certificate of incorporation described in the preceding sentences. These provisions of our certificate of incorporation could limit the ability of our stockholders to obtain a favorable judicial forum for certain disputes with us or with our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage such lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and employees. Alternatively, if a court were to find these provisions of our certificate of incorporation inapplicable to, or unenforceable in respect of, one or more of the types of actions or proceedings listed above, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such matters in other jurisdictions, which could adversely affect its business, financial condition and results of operations. While the Delaware courts have determined that such choice of forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring a claim in a venue other than those designated in the exclusive forum provisions, and there can be no assurance that such provisions will be enforced by a court in those other jurisdictions.
Some provisions of Delaware law and our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may deter third parties from acquiring us and diminish the value of our common stock.
Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws provide for, among other things:
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the ability of our Board to issue one or more series of preferred stock with voting or other rights or preferences that could have the effect of impeding the success of an attempt to acquire us or otherwise effect a change in control;
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advance notice for nominations of directors by stockholders and for stockholders to include matters to be considered at stockholder meetings; and
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certain limitations on convening special stockholder meetings.
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In addition, in our certificate of incorporation, we have not opted out of Section 203 of the DGCL, which prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in certain “business combinations” with any “interested stockholder” for a three-year period following the time that the stockholder became an interested stockholder, unless:
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prior to such time, the board of directors approved either the business combination or the transaction that resulted in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder;
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upon consummation of the transaction that resulted in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder, the interested stockholder owned at least 85% of voting stock outstanding at the time the transaction commenced, excluding certain shares; or
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at or subsequent to that time, the business combination is approved by our Board and by the affirmative vote of holders of at least two-thirds of the votes of our outstanding voting stock that is not owned by the interested stockholder.
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Generally, a “business combination” includes a merger, asset or stock sale or other transaction resulting in a financial benefit to the interested stockholder. Subject to certain exceptions, an “interested stockholder” is a person who, together with that person’s affiliates and associates, owns, or within the previous three years owned, 15% or more of the votes of our outstanding voting stock. For purposes of this provision, “voting stock” means any class or series of stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors.
Under certain circumstances, this provision will make it more difficult for a person who would be an “interested stockholder” to effect various business combinations with us for a three-year period. This provision may encourage companies interested in acquiring us to negotiate in advance with our board of directors because the stockholder approval requirement would be avoided if our Board approves either the business combination or the transaction that results in the stockholder becoming an interested stockholder. These provisions also may have the effect of preventing changes in our Board and may make it more difficult to accomplish transactions that stockholders may otherwise deem to be in their best interests.
These provisions in our certificate of incorporation and our bylaws, as well as Delaware law, may discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of us that is in the best interest of its minority stockholders. Even in the absence of a takeover attempt, the existence of these provisions may adversely affect the prevailing market price of our common stock if they are viewed as discouraging future takeover attempts. These provisions could also make it more difficult for stockholders to nominate directors for election to our board of directors and take other corporate actions.
Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws could make a takeover proposal more difficult.
Certain provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws could discourage, delay, defer or prevent a merger, tender offer, proxy contest or other change of control transaction that a stockholder may consider favorable, including those attempts that might result in a premium over the market price for our common stock. Among other things, our certificate of incorporation and bylaws include provisions that:
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provide for a classified board of directors with staggered, three-year terms, which could delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our Board;
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prohibit cumulative voting in the election of directors, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;
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prohibit, subject to the rights of holders of shares of our preferred stock, stockholders from acting by consent in lieu of stockholder meetings;
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provide for the right of our Board to elect directors to fill vacancies and newly created directorships resulting from any increase in the authorized number of directors, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our Board;
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permit our Board to issue shares of preferred stock, including “blank check” preferred stock, and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights of the preferred stock, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
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provide advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our Board or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at annual meetings of stockholders, which could preclude stockholders from bringing matters before annual meetings of stockholders and delay changes in our Board and also may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of the company; and
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provide that directors may only be removed for cause and upon the affirmative vote of the holders of at least a majority of the voting power of the outstanding shares of stock entitled to vote generally for the election of directors.
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These provisions, alone or together, could delay hostile takeovers and changes in control of us or changes in our Board and our management.
 
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We are an emerging growth company within the meaning of the Securities Act and a smaller reporting company within the meaning of the Exchange Act, and if we take advantage of certain exemptions from disclosure requirements available to “emerging growth companies” or “smaller reporting companies,” this could make our securities less attractive to investors and may make it more difficult to compare our performance with other public companies.
We are an emerging growth company within the meaning of the Securities Act, as modified by the JOBS Act, and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from say-on-pay, say- on-frequency and say-on-golden parachute voting requirements. As a result, our stockholders may not have access to certain information they may deem important. We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the last day of the fiscal year: (a) following July 12, 2026, the fifth anniversary of the Company IPO; (b) in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1,235,000,000; or (c) in which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer, which means the market value of the shares of our Common Stock that are held by non-affiliates exceeds $700,000,000 as of the last business day of our prior second fiscal quarter, and (ii) the date on which we have issued more than $1,000,000,000 in non- convertible debt securities during the prior three-year period.
Further, Section 102(b)(1) of the JOBS Act exempts emerging growth companies from being required to comply with new or revised financial accounting standards until private companies (that is, those that have not had a Securities Act registration statement declared effective or do not have a class of securities registered under the Exchange Act) are required to comply with the new or revised financial accounting standards. The JOBS Act provides that a company can elect to opt out of the extended transition period and comply with the requirements that apply to non- emerging growth companies but any such election to opt out is irrevocable. We intend to take advantage of the benefits of this extended transition period.
Even after we no longer qualify as an emerging growth company, we may still qualify as a “smaller reporting company,” which would allow us to continue to take advantage of many of the same exemptions from disclosure requirements, including reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements. Moreover, smaller reporting companies may choose to present only the two most recent fiscal years of audited financial statements in their Annual Reports on Form 10-K. For so long as we are a smaller reporting company and not classified as an “accelerated filer” or “large accelerated filer” pursuant to SEC rules, we will be exempt from the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
We cannot predict whether investors will find our securities less attractive because we rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our securities less attractive as a result of our reliance on these exemptions, the trading prices of our securities may be lower than they otherwise would be, there may be a less active trading market for our securities and the trading prices of our securities may be more volatile.
Compliance with the reporting obligations under the United States securities laws and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley requires expenditures of capital and other resources and may divert management’s attention. If we fail to comply with these reporting obligations or to maintain adequate internal controls our operations, and investors’ confidence in us, could be materially and adversely affected.
As a public company, we are required to comply with the periodic reporting obligations of the Exchange Act, Sarbanes-Oxley and other applicable securities rules and regulations, including the preparation of annual reports, quarterly reports, and current reports. Complying with these rules and regulations could cause us to incur additional legal and financial compliance costs and make some activities more difficult, time-consuming and costly. Further, by complying with public disclosure requirements, our business and financial condition are more visible, which may result in increased threatened or actual litigation.
In preparing its financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, Legacy Oklo identified material weaknesses in its internal control over financial reporting for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, which were remediated in 2023 with the implementation of additional controls and procedures and hiring of staff and third party accounting personnel with appropriate finance and US
 
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GAAP experience. However, we may in the future discover material weaknesses in other areas of our internal control over financial reporting that require remediation.
Any failure to maintain internal control over financial reporting could severely inhibit our ability to accurately report our financial condition or results of operations, cause us to lose investor confidence, prevent us from obtaining capital on favorable terms or at all, and subject us to sanctions or investigations by the SEC, the NYSE or other regulatory authorities.
If we fail to timely meet our reporting obligations under the Exchange Act, Sarbanes-Oxley and other applicable securities rules and regulations in their entirety, we could be subject to penalties under federal securities laws and regulations of the NYSE and face lawsuits, and we will not be able to obtain independent accountant certifications required for public companies under Sarbanes-Oxley.
Our failure to timely and effectively implement controls and procedures required by Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could negatively impact our business.
As a public company, we are subject to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and are required to provide management’s attestation on internal controls. The standards required for a public company under Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are significantly more stringent than those required of us as a privately held company. Management may not be able to effectively and timely implement controls and procedures that adequately respond to the increased regulatory compliance and reporting requirements. In connection with the preparation of our consolidated financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 Legacy Oklo identified material weaknesses in its internal controls over financial reporting which were remediated in 2023. Please see “— Compliance with the reporting obligations under the United States securities laws and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley requires expenditures of capital and other resources and may divert management’s attention. If we fail to comply with these reporting obligations or to maintain adequate internal controls our operations, and investors’ confidence in us, could be materially and adversely affected.” If our management is unable to conclude that we have effective internal control over financial reporting, or to certify the effectiveness of such controls, and our independent registered public accounting firm cannot render an unqualified opinion on management’s assessment and the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting at such time as it is required to do so, and material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting are identified, we could be subject to regulatory scrutiny, a loss of public and investor confidence, and to litigation from investors and stockholders, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and our stock price. In addition, if we do not maintain adequate financial and management personnel, processes, and controls, we may not be able to manage our business effectively or accurately report our financial performance on a timely basis, which could cause a decline in our stock price and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Failure to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could potentially subject us to sanctions or investigations by the SEC, the exchange upon which our securities are listed or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.
 
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USE OF PROCEEDS
We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Common Stock by the Selling Holders pursuant to this prospectus.
The Selling Holders will pay all incremental selling expenses relating to the sale of their shares of Common Stock, including underwriters’ or agents’ commissions and discounts, brokerage fees, underwriter marketing costs and all reasonable fees and expenses of any legal counsel representing the Selling Holders, except that we will pay the reasonable fees and expenses of one legal counsel for the Selling Holders, in the event of an underwritten offering of their securities. We will bear all other costs, fees and expenses incurred in effecting the registration of the securities covered by this prospectus, including, without limitation, all registration and filing fees, printing and delivery fees, NYSE listing fees and fees and expenses of our counsel and our accountants.
DETERMINATION OF OFFERING PRICE
We cannot currently determine the price or prices at which shares of Common Stock may be sold by the Selling Holders under this prospectus.
MARKET INFORMATION FOR COMMON STOCK AND DIVIDEND POLICY
Market Information
Our Common Stock is currently listed on NYSE under the symbol “OKLO.”
As of September 17, 2024, we have 122,096,270 shares of Common Stock outstanding held of record by 68 holders. Such amounts do not include DTC participants or beneficial owners holding shares through nominee names.
Dividend Policy
We have not paid any cash dividends on our Common Stock to date. The payment of cash dividends in the future will be dependent upon our revenues and earnings, if any, capital requirements and general financial condition, as well as the applicable provisions of our certificate of incorporation, our bylaws and applicable law. The payment of any cash dividends will be within the discretion of our Board at such time. Our ability to declare dividends will also be limited by restrictive covenants pursuant to any debt financing agreements. In addition, our Board is not currently contemplating and does not anticipate declaring any stock dividends in the foreseeable future.
 
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BUSINESS
References in this section to “we,” “our” and “us” generally refer to Legacy Oklo prior to the Business Combination and the Company after the Business Combination.
Our Mission
Our mission is to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy through the design and deployment of next-generation fast fission power plants on a global scale. To deliver on this mission, we are leveraging proven technologies, developing a licensing framework to support our modern deployment model, and vertically integrating our nuclear fuel supply chain. We also believe we have an embedded opportunity to enhance our business with advanced fuel recycling technology to convert used fuel waste into clean energy. Our vision is to deploy fast fission power plants to provide solutions for reaching carbon neutrality, to improve environmental and societal justice through electrification, to provide reliable and affordable power for industry and an overall growing energy demand, and to bolster energy resiliency.
Overview and Competitive Strengths
We were founded in 2013 with the goal of revolutionizing the energy landscape by developing clean, reliable, affordable energy solutions at scale. We believe that global demand for reliable, clean energy is growing rapidly and according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2022 it is estimated that new policies in major energy markets will propel an expected $2 trillion to be spent on new clean power generation globally by 2030. We are pursuing two complementary tracks to address this demand: providing reliable, commercial-scale energy to customers and selling used nuclear fuel recycling services to the U.S. market.
We are developing next-generation fast fission power plants called “powerhouses.” In our differentiated build, own, and operate business model, we plan to sell power in the forms of electricity and heat directly to customers, which we believe can allow for fast-tracked customer adoption. In addition, we believe we are a pioneer in the nuclear industry in the development of fuel recycling capabilities, which can unlock the energy content of used fuel; we also believe this business unit can complement our market position by vertically integrating and securing our fuel supply chain.
The fast fission technology we are working to commercialize was demonstrated by the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (“EBR-II”), a fast fission plant that was operated by the U.S. government for 30 years. Our powerhouse product line, called the “Aurora,” builds on this legacy of proven and demonstrated technology. Our Aurora powerhouse product line is designed to be inherently safe, to be able to run on fresh or recycled fuel, and to produce 15-50 MWe. Because the Aurora powerhouses are designed to operate by harnessing the power of high-energy, or “fast,” neutrons, they will be able to tap into the vast energy reserves remaining in existing used nuclear fuel from conventional nuclear power plants, which is currently considered nuclear waste. We estimate there is enough energy in the form of nuclear waste globally to meet the projected U.S. demand for electricity for 100 years with fast fission power plants.
We have achieved several significant deployment and regulatory milestones, including securing a site use permit from the DOE for the Idaho National Laboratory (“INL”) site and a fuel award from INL for a commercial-scale Aurora powerhouse in Idaho. We have announced plans for two Aurora powerhouses in southern Ohio and have been tentatively selected to provide power and heat to Eielson AFB. Furthermore, we have a robust pipeline of potential customer engagements across a number of industries, having signed non-binding letters of intent that we believe could result in the deployment of Aurora powerhouses totaling over 700 MWe in capacity. The early market interest in our solutions exemplifies the potential demand for our size range of powerhouses and differentiated business model. Our first powerhouse is targeted for deployment in 2026 or 2027.
We believe that our approach to commercializing fast fission has several key competitive advantages that will support our mission:
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Modern application of proven, inherently safe technology — The fast fission technology we are leveraging has been proven by the U.S. government and has over 400 reactor-years of experience globally, providing compelling data regarding the inherent safety, operating, and maintenance
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characteristics of the technology. The Aurora builds on this proven technology to reduce risks typically associated with the deployment of new or novel technologies. Our strategic focus on small powerhouses for initial deployments can also help to reduce complexity and cost, facilitating streamlined deployment.
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Differentiated business model — We are developing a build, own, and operate model by which we plan to build the powerhouse and then sell energy in the form of electricity or heat via PPAs to end customers. This model sets us apart from both the traditional nuclear industry and current competitors in the advanced fission industry who license their technology to utility companies. We believe our business model will allow us to obtain customers quickly, reduce and manage regulatory and operating costs, and leverage financing strategies similar to those used in renewable energy projects.
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Advantaged fuel supply — Fuel costs are a major cost driver for advanced fission reactors using HALEU fuel. We believe we are the only advanced reactor developer to have secured a source of fuel for a first commercial deployment, as we were awarded fuel material by INL in 2019 for our first powerhouse in Idaho. We also have a partnership in place with Centrus Energy Corp. (“Centrus”), announced in 2021, to cooperate in the development of a production facility for HALEU to support future deployments. In August 2023, we took a step toward this goal by entering into a memorandum of understanding with Centrus, which in part contemplates a definitive agreement under which we would purchase HALEU from Centrus’s planned Piketon, Ohio facility. Further, the Aurora is designed to run on both fresh HALEU and recycled used nuclear fuel waste which does not require further enrichment in order to be used as fuel in the Aurora. We are also developing fuel recycling capabilities to vertically integrate our fuel supply and further realize the potential of fast fission technology.
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Superior characteristics of fast fission — Clean, firm power is essential to meeting growth in global electricity demand, which is expected to triple by 2050. Nuclear energy has among the lowest lifecycle emissions per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) and the highest capacity utilization of any current major energy source in the United States per the DOE. As a result, we expect that the price of power to our potential customers could be competitive with some of the lowest prices offered by current firm or dispatchable power sources.
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Strong founder-led team with deep technical expertise — Our founders are nuclear engineers with significant experience in nuclear technology. Our diverse team is highly qualified, with a significant number of advanced degrees in engineering and science, and cumulative decades of experience with the U.S. regulator, who licenses commercial nuclear power for operation. Together, we bring expertise and experience from several industries, such as nuclear power, aerospace, automotive, tech to deliver on our mission.
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Industry and Market Opportunity
Energy consumption is growing rapidly while the world simultaneously tries to mitigate the effects of pollution and climate change, which is one of the most significant health threats facing humanity. Pollution and climate change are expected to account for 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050. As a result, clean, reliable, affordable, energy solutions are in increasingly high demand and will be critical to combat the effects of pollution and climate change. Global electricity demand is expected to triple by 2050 as electrification and living standards increase. Electricity demand is expected to further increase due to advances in artificial intelligence and increased data storage needs. The need to deploy clean power sources is made even greater by the ongoing replacement of existing carbon-intensive power sources.
The world needs clean, reliable, and affordable energy sources that are deployable at scale to support the growth in global demand for electricity while meeting the commitments made by many energy buyers and countries for decarbonization. Wind and solar power solutions are clean but currently only provide intermittent energy, not firm, baseload energy. Expensive electric transmission infrastructure is required to scale most renewable energy sources. Most renewable energy sources also require significant storage infrastructure to provide firm, baseload energy. This storage infrastructure is not scaling to meet the global need. Natural gas provides firm, baseload energy but is expensive and not clean. It also relies on expensive gas distribution infrastructure and, in order to provide clean power, requires carbon capture technology, which is also not scaling to meet the global need.
 
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Nuclear energy offers important advantages over other major electricity generating sources. According to the IPCC, nuclear energy provides among the lowest lifecycle emissions, and according to the DOE, the highest capacity utilization - at a 93% average capacity utilization in the United States - of any major electricity generating source. Nuclear power plants have operated reliably for over 60 years with more than 400 gigawatts electric (“GWe”) of installed capacity in 32 countries. Nuclear power plants can serve as a baseload electricity source, while providing efficient land use and utilizing existing transmission infrastructure. Beyond providing firm electricity baseload, they can also be used to provide grid flexibility and decarbonization beyond the grid. According to the DOE’s “Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear” report, achieving a net-zero energy grid in the U.S. by 2050 requires a threefold increase in nuclear power capacity, an increase of roughly 200 GWe. Nuclear power can provide clean baseload power that replaces fossil fuels and solves the intermittency issue of renewables, allowing the grid to accommodate a significant increase in capacity from renewables as well.
The U.S. government has recently indicated through bipartisan action that it recognizes the importance of nuclear power in meeting the United States’ growing energy needs. The IR Act, which was signed into law in August 2022, includes $700 million in funding for advanced nuclear fuel, $250 billion of loan authority for the DOE Loan Programs Office (“LPO”), and up to 50% for either an investment or production tax credit. Additionally, U.S. governmental appropriations for U.S. fiscal year 2023 provide over $1.4 billion to support a wide range of nuclear energy initiatives with more funding expected in the upcoming fiscal year 2024. We believe that we are well-positioned among other advanced fission companies to take advantage of these government incentives. Specifically, the LPO funding eligibility is limited to finance work which does not have other federal support. Most advanced reactor developers received government funding for reactor development, but Oklo has not received federal funding for advanced reactor development work. As such, there is less susceptibility to prohibitions of our use of the LPO program funding. Additionally, the IR Act also created two tax credits available to new energy projects placed in service after December 31, 2024, the Clean Electricity Production and Investment Tax Credits, that are eligible for facilities generating electricity, which we believe we can directly leverage as an owner and operator of our technologies; LPO financing can be combined with either the Clean Electricity Production or Investment Tax Credit potentially allowing us to take advantage of both offerings from the IR Act.
Products
Our primary product will be the energy produced from our Aurora powerhouses, once operational. Our planned business model is to sell the energy to customers via PPAs, as opposed to selling our powerhouse designs. This business model allows for recurring revenue, the opportunity to capture profitability upon improved operational efficiency, and enables novel project financing structures. This business model sets us apart from the traditional nuclear power industry, other companies in the advanced fission industry, and other larger scale energy types such as natural gas. Selling power via PPAs is a common practice within the renewable energy sector and indicates that this business model could be feasible for power plants within the size range targeted by our Aurora product line (i.e., starting with 15 MWe and ranging upward to anticipated sizes of 50 MWe).
The traditional nuclear power industry comprises developers of large (ranging from approximately 600 MWe to over 1,000 MWe) light water reactors who sell or license their reactor designs to large utilities who then construct and operate the nuclear power plant. The developer’s focus on regulatory approval of the design may lock in certain lifecycle regulatory costs that are realized by the owner-operator during construction and operations. As a result, lifecycle cost implications are generally not addressed cohesively between the developer and the owner-operator, and the regulatory strategy does not holistically implement the lifecycle benefits of the technology’s inherent safety characteristics. To date, the advanced fission industry is largely following the historical blueprint of developers seeking design certifications or approvals, and utilities bearing the future burden of licensing. While there are a number of advanced reactor designers developing smaller sized reactors than those traditionally used in the nuclear power industry, most of these developers are generally pursuing regulatory approval of groupings of these smaller reactors as part of singular larger plants, sizes of 200 MWe and up to 1,000 MWe.
In contrast, we plan to be the designer, builder, owner, and operator of our powerhouses and plan to focus on small-scale powerhouses (15 MWe to 50 MWe). As a result, we have an incentive to relentlessly
 
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focus on the full lifecycle of a safe, well-maintained, cost-effective powerhouse and holistically implement the benefits of an inherently safe, simple design. We expect this approach to enable us to reduce and manage lifecycle regulatory and operating costs in an integrated fashion, as opposed to the historical model used in the nuclear power industry that divides the incentives and responsibilities between the developer and the utility.
Selling electricity under PPAs follows an established revenue model in global power markets. While this model is more typically used for renewable energy solutions, we believe it is a compelling model for us because of the relatively small size and the lower expected capital costs of our powerhouses, when compared with other nuclear power plants. In addition, our model is designed to generate recurring revenue in a way that the traditional licensing model does not. For example, in the traditional technology licensing model, after the sale of the design, recurring revenue is dependent upon the sale of service contracts, including fuel services, which may result in prices being undercut by intermediaries. We expect our powerhouses to be profitable from the first year of operation due to our anticipated favorable unit economics. We also believe this approach will drive unit growth and allow us to ultimately launch higher output versions of our powerhouses.
We believe that our potential customers want to buy power, rather than own or operate power plants, and will prefer affordable solutions that meet their environmental and operational goals. We plan to further accelerate customer adoption by offering minimal to potentially zero upfront costs and quick delivery times. With non-binding letters of intent from potential customers for over 700 MWe, we believe our powerhouses are an ideal fit for target markets in decentralized use cases such as data centers, national defense, factories, industrial customers, off-grid and rural customers, and utilities.
In addition to selling power under PPAs, we believe we have an embedded opportunity to enhance our mission with our advanced nuclear fuel recycling technology. We are actively developing nuclear fuel recycling capabilities with the goal of deploying a commercial-scale fuel recycling facility in the United States by the 2030s. Used nuclear fuel waste still contains more than 90% of its energy content, and we believe there is enough energy in the form of used nuclear fuel waste globally to power the expected electrical needs in the United States for 100 years with fast fission power plants. More than 90,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel waste have been generated since 1950, and an additional 2,000 metric tons are generated every year. Currently, other countries recycle used nuclear fuel waste, but the United States does not, and there is an enormous opportunity to do so. Our reactors are specifically designed to run on either fresh or recycled nuclear fuel, which could provide significant potential commercial upside, as fuel recycling could allow us to transform the traditional fuel supply chain with additional security and optionality and reduce fuel capital costs for our powerhouses. Additionally, fuel recycling has the potential to further benefit us economically, as we plan to sell radioisotopes, and recycling services.
Regulatory Experience and Outlook
Commercial deployment of any advanced fission power plant requires obtaining regulatory approvals from the NRC for design, construction, and operation. Since 2013, we have been gaining regulatory experience and developing a relationship with the NRC. This experience has informed two key tenets of our licensing approach that we believe will enable us to achieve our mission. First, we believe the inherent safety of the technology and the expected size of our powerhouses will enable us to efficiently meet existing regulations. Second, we are taking advantage of an all-in-one license application process, in which we believe subsequent licenses of a powerhouse will benefit from the initial license of the reference powerhouse, accelerating our deployments.
Our licensing methods and repeatable approach to licensing are possible because of the proven safety fundamentals of the technology. As a result, the expected safety profile of our designs relies less significantly upon the specific site, on construction, or on operational characteristics than that of prior nuclear power plants. We believe that using a technology with proven inherent safety fundamentals is key to changing the historical trend of high and growing costs in nuclear power relating to plant safety, mostly resulting from regulatory induced costs. We also believe that repeatable licensing can be enabled with reactor technology with inherent safety, so that the plant’s safety is as separated from site-specific constraints as possible, making the plant more readily deployable at a variety of sites.
 
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We believe that a benefit to efficiently meeting the regulations will be a reduction in the time required for regulatory approvals. Based on our prior experience with the NRC and our internal estimates, we believe that the NRC will require between 24 and 36 months for the review of the license application for our first-of-a-kind powerhouse, and that timeline is expected to be significantly shortened for each subsequent license application. Historically, reviews initiated by the NRC have taken more than eight years, with 75% of the reviews taking over a decade to complete, considering that the reviews have been done in multiple steps, separating out design reviews from construction and operations reviews or separating out construction approval from subsequent operations licensing. In 2019, Congress passed the bipartisan Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (“NEIMA”) directing the NRC to develop performance requirements for its review of licensing activities following acceptance of a license application; for combined license application reviews such as ours, the NRC chose three years as a generic milestone.
Regulatory approval can be pursued for a design, for construction at an individual site, and for operating at an individual site - or all in one. These authorizations serve different purposes and allow for a specified set of activities. Of note, to operate a commercial power reactor, an entity must obtain an operating license under Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 50, “Domestic licensing of production and utilization facilities” ​(after having obtained a construction permit) or must obtain a combined license under 10 CFR Part 52, “Licenses, certifications, and approvals for nuclear power plants.” In other words, neither a construction permit, nor a standard design approval or a design certification are NRC authorizations that allow the production of power by a commercial nuclear power plant. In short, there are no advanced fission designs with a license for commercial operations, and there are no such applications under review by the NRC.
Our business model as an owner-operator and our focus on repeatable licensing is why, starting early in our engagement with the NRC, we focused on an all-in-one, “custom combined license application.” This is a regulatory pathway that already exists but has not been exercised. Because a combined license for advanced fission was entirely new, we worked with the NRC to pilot a new application structure in 2018. This experience then informed our work to develop our first custom combined license application.
In March 2020, we became the first advanced fission company to submit a custom combined license application, and we remain the only such company to do so. Through this license application, we requested authorization to build and operate our Aurora powerhouse in Idaho, and in June 2020, we became the first advanced fission company to have a combined license accepted for review by the NRC. The application and its acceptance for review demonstrated a wide range of historic firsts and novelties in engagement with the NRC: the first application submitted online, the first submitted all in one step, the first for an advanced fission company, and the first with a completely novel structure built to better suit the technology it was meant to license.
Based on our experience leading up to the submission of the combined license application, we expected that our application would be subject to an in-person audit review process, and the application itself was structured to lend itself to in-person audit engagements between technical staff and our engineers for confirmation of supporting data. The application was submitted on March 11, 2020, the day that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The implications of the pandemic made the application review very challenging, and the application was denied without prejudice in 2022, with the NRC requiring further information to complete the review. With the information we have learned from our initial application process, and the expansion of our regulatory team, we have been actively addressing outstanding questions by the NRC and have been engaging with the NRC to progress toward our next application.
As of August 2024, our regulatory interactions with the NRC for our powerhouses have consisted of numerous pre-application meetings, which we anticipate will be followed by the formal submission and review of the requisite authorizations and applications, leading to the construction and operation of the licensed facility. We strive to have intentional and focused pre-application engagements with the NRC to ensure that both we and the NRC have the necessary resources and that such resources are utilized deliberately in carrying out an efficient review. We anticipate that we will obtain a license for our first powerhouse for full operation at a fraction of the cost of any other advanced fission company, a credit to the regulatory traction we have gained over the years.
 
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We are anticipating subsequent Aurora powerhouse license applications and have developed our regulatory strategy to enable efficient licensing of future powerhouses. A key benefit of the combined license application that we use is that it enables replication for follow-on powerhouses, with review anticipated to focus only on the portions in the subsequent application, or “S-COLA,” that have changed from the first, reference application, or “R-COLA.” Currently, we expect that the difference in information will be limited to siting information and other site-specific information, and we anticipate that each S-COLA will be reviewed efficiently and far more quickly than the first R-COLA.
Our experience over the past decade has resulted in several historic accomplishments for non-water-cooled advanced fission: we were first to formally engage with the NRC, first to fully pilot a new application structure, first to submit a combined license, and first to have the NRC accept their combined license application for review. We are also the first to have an NRC-approved quality assurance program and the first to have an NRC-approved safeguards information handling program.
We believe these efforts have placed us in a strong position for achieving one of the most important deployment milestones: receiving an issued license to operate and produce power, with a path for obtaining subsequent licenses. We also believe our unique approach will enable us to reach these milestones at a fraction of the time and cost of any other advanced fission company.
We are also engaged with the NRC for our work on recycling technologies, which was announced in late 2020.
Fuel Supply and Recycling
Fuel supply is a critical factor for the deployment of all advanced fission power plants, and fuel cost is a key determining factor related to the price of power provided to customers. Typically, utilities are responsible for sourcing fuel for their plants, and as a result, we believe many advanced fission developers are not directly incentivized to establish long-term fuel supply. Because we will own and operate our facilities, we will be purchasing and using the fuel for our powerhouses, and therefore we have a significant incentive to develop our fuel supply chain. Furthermore, with fast fission technology, fuel may be recycled and reused, such that it holds long-term value for us as owners of the fuel. As a result of our efforts to ensure our fuel supply, we have allocated fuel for our first plant, we are building and have already announced commercial relationships to support the supply of fuel for future deployments, and we believe we are leading the U.S. market in terms of investment into fuel recycling technologies.
In 2017, we signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with the DOE related to fuel and siting for an advanced reactor deployment at INL. In 2020, INL announced that we were selected for the opportunity to access recycled fuel material to fuel that reactor. We believe this award uniquely positions us among advanced fission developers that use HALEU as the only company with access to fuel for our first commercial deployment. Additionally, in 2021, we signed a non-binding Letter of Intent with Centrus to cooperate in the development of a production facility for HALEU, which we believe will support the commercialization of our advanced fission plants. In August 2023, we took a step toward this goal by entering into a memorandum of understanding with Centrus, which in part contemplates a definitive agreement under which we would purchase HALEU from Centrus’s planned Piketon, Ohio facility. We are currently working with potential customers for a number of plants in the near-term, and the expected financing arrangements for these multiple deployments is expected to include financing for the fuel for each plant. As such, in contrast with developers focused on one or two large plants over the next decade, we believe that by having many nearer-term financed deployments we have the capability for large-scale fuel procurement which may accelerate our capability to establish a fuel supply chain.
In addition to our approach to establishing fuel supply chain through the financing of multiple plants, we believe we can reduce our long-term fuel costs by approximately 80% by fueling reactors with recycled used nuclear fuel waste. We have designed the Aurora powerhouse product line to run on both fresh HALEU and recycled fuel. The ability to utilize recycled nuclear fuel is important because it unlocks a supply of currently available fuel material, potentially reducing our reliance on new fuel enrichment facilities beginning operation. Additionally, recycled nuclear fuel waste material does not require enrichment, which eliminates a challenge with the supply chain of HALEU. There are about 90,000 metric tons of used fuel that have been generated by the U.S.’s operating reactors, which is currently considered waste but which, according to our
 
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estimates, could power the U.S. for over 100 years using fast fission technology. This used fuel is currently stored at great cost to utilities and other service providers.
The ability to use recycled fuel is unique to fast fission technologies. Recycling fuel was already demonstrated decades ago at the EBR-II by the U.S. government for the same fuel that we employ. Furthermore, used EBR-II fuel is actively being recycled now for use in the planned Aurora powerhouse at INL as part of the fuel material award from INL.
We are actively working to commercialize the recycling technology used to recover the EBR-II fuel. Our leadership in the development of recycling technology and progress toward commercialization is exemplified by our selection by DOE and DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (“ARPA-E”) for four different cost-share projects related to recycling. These projects are funded by the DOE Technology Commercialization Fund (“TCF”), the ARPA-E CURIE program, the ARPA-E OPEN program, and the ARPA-E ONWARDS program. The DOE has approved the Safety Design Strategy for our Aurora Fabrication Facility at Idaho National Laboratory. The Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility is being designed to demonstrate the reuse of recovered nuclear material. We intend to further pursue the deployment of a commercial used nuclear fuel recycling facility. As of August 2024, we are in the stage of conducting technology development, pre-application regulatory engagement, and consent-supported siting.
Technology
Our powerhouses are designed to generate energy through fast fission technology, which has operated for hundreds of reactor-years globally. Our powerhouses are designed to be small, and use largely prefabricated components, are powered by compact, non-pressurized reactors with minimal moving parts, generally use common materials and commercially available power-generating equipment, and use less than two acres of land. Despite their small size and footprint, a single powerhouse can provide sufficient electricity to power thousands of homes.
Inspiration and Proven Technology
We believe that we are one of the only companies in the advanced fission industry that is leveraging technology that has been used for decades at the size range of our intended heat or power output. This approach is an important part of our business strategy to reduce technological risk in the service of rapid commercialization. By leveraging extensive U.S. government investments to demonstrate this technology via multiple operating reactors over decades, we believe we can avoid the long delays associated with building and operating scaled prototypes to demonstrate a technology and obtain the necessary data to support deployment and licensing. Qualified experimental data is essential to the successful licensing of a new reactor technology, and a significant experimental dataset exists for fast fission technology because of the substantial investments by the U.S. government. Starting in 2016, we began working with national labs through DOE-funded efforts to qualify portions of this data for use in licensing. In this way, instead of spending considerable resources in fundamental research and development, we have been able to focus our efforts on key, targeted research and development, and on reducing deployment risk associated with tasks such as licensing, developing a supply chain, construction, and operation.
The Integral Fast Reactor (“IFR”) program and the Fast Flux Test Facility (“FFTF”) are two examples of prior research and development we are building on. The IFR program was a program supported by DOE to demonstrate closing the nuclear fuel cycle, which refers to recycling and reusing nuclear fuel, and to prepare for commercialization of metal-fueled fast fission power plants. For example, the IFR program recycled around 35,000 fuel elements, produced 366 subassemblies, assembled 66 control and safety rods, performed over 30,000 irradiation tests, operated for over 30 years, generated over 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and sold power to the grid. The FFTF was the most heavily instrumented fast fission test reactor in the world, and its primary mission was to test full-size nuclear fuels and components typical of those to be found in a commercial fast fission reactor, which uses a liquid metal coolant. FFTF was considered highly successful by industry experts and demonstrated outstanding performance during the 10 years of reactor operation and nearly 20 years of plant system (including the sodium systems) operation.
The IFR program demonstrated the inherent safety characteristics of metal-fueled fast fission reactors, the reactor type that our Aurora product line is designed to use, in particular through a series of landmark
 
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tests at EBR-II in the 1980s. These tests were based on hypothesized extreme nuclear accidents and showed that the EBR-II fast fission reactor technology can preclude significant damage and that system safety is bolstered by the inherent characteristics of the system. For example, most operating water-cooled reactors generally need pumps to activate in order to circulate cooling water after shutdown to prevent melting of the fuel. This means that the pumps, the generator supplying power to these pumps, the power supply system, and the activation systems, among other systems, all must be safety-grade, and all must actively function to assure safety. The EBR-II tests showed that metal-fueled, liquid-metal-cooled fast fission reactors, similar to our design, only need inherent characteristics such as thermal expansion of metal and other fundamental physical characteristics to mitigate potential damage in the case of loss of cooling and loss of function of shutdown systems.
Strategically Small Size
We designed our powerhouses to be smaller than prior commercial nuclear deployments, both in terms of footprint and power output, to attempt to avoid infrastructure challenges. Historically, the largest contributor to levelized cost of electricity from nuclear power plants has been the costs of financing the multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects, which can be compounded by costs of any delays in construction or production. As a project grows in cost and complexity, or large or specialty parts become required, the logistics of the project and the variables affecting success increase exponentially. We believe that for the nuclear industry to achieve economies of scale, smaller, more simplified plants are essential.
Our initial focus is on developing reactors that produce 15 MWe or less, but we expect that the Aurora product line will eventually include powerhouses that can produce up to 50 MWe. The strategic focus on these small reactors is expected to help reduce complexity and cost. The cost of the early deployments of our 15 MWe plants is expected to be approximately $70 million, however, the long term expected cost of future deployments of our 15 MWe plants is expected to be less than $60 million, and the target construction time is less than 1 year; in comparison, the most recent U.S. commercial nuclear power plant deployment of two large 1,100 MWe light water reactors was projected to cost more than $30 billion and to take more than 10 years of construction time. We believe that our initial focus on small powerhouses makes us uniquely advantaged because we do not require massive amounts of government funding to deploy them.
The following illustration of an Aurora powerhouse shows our anticipated modern design and its relatively small size when compared to currently operating nuclear power plants.
[MISSING IMAGE: ph_aurorapowerhouse-4clr.jpg]
Modern Design Approach
We have focused on utilizing modern design methods, including modern software tools for design version control, digital twins, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to rapidly iterate on design parameters. We also utilize digital quality controls and documentation, which enable advanced tracking of safety functions through all phases of component design, procurement, testing, and maintenance. We believe these investments in modern software can improve safety and quality assurance, make our design process more efficient, provide for improved documentation, and ultimately facilitate more efficient operations, maintenance, and scalability of our powerhouses. Our team includes exceptional software engineers with
 
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experience from leading software development companies in Silicon Valley. This talent has enabled exceptional capabilities in terms of our modern design approach as well as our documentation and quality assurance practices.
Our modern design methods differ from the legacy methods in the existing nuclear industry, which generally do not utilize modern computing or design methods. For example, many older operating nuclear power plants do not utilize electronic records for quality assurance. This means that essential quality assurance records which are used to monitor the safety of the legacy plants are kept on paper, requiring revisions to be physically transported and stored in physical locations. This creates complications in managing change control related to safety systems in these large historical plants. The capability to track the safety-related function of those components in real time is often essentially nonexistent, and if a safety-related component needs to be revised, the analysis must be redone by the designer to approve a revision. This is then documented on paper, sometimes physically mailed to the regulator, any related engineering services provider, the utility, among others. This approach is costly and can make it very difficult for incumbents in the nuclear industry to ensure quality. By contrast, our approach is designed to tie key functions to key components and to the testing and maintenance of those components throughout the life of the plant, which is expected to be 40 or more years. Design decision points are documented as version-controlled instances with documented approval processes so that every component’s design has a clear pedigree and modifications are integrated only after undergoing a rigorous process.
Targeting Streamlined Deployment
The Aurora product line is designed to be constructed and operated at a wide range of sites. Because of the compact nature of the powerhouses and the minimal land and resources they require, we have increased site selection flexibility compared to traditional nuclear power plants. For example, our powerhouses do not need to be sited next to bodies of water like most existing nuclear power plants and many of the larger small modular reactor designs, opening a large site selection area and serving potential customers that seek a high degree of localization. The following are illustrations of an Aurora powerhouse site showing building internals (left) and the finished exterior (right):
[MISSING IMAGE: ph_deployment-4clr.jpg]
Minimal site preparation is expected to be required before we install a powerhouse. The logistics for the site are designed to be simpler, since all components can be transported by truck and can be lifted by typical cranes. Additionally, we believe a relatively small labor force will be required for construction to help prevent overruns and overages.
We are designing our reactors to be largely automated to minimize the need to individually license human reactor operators by the NRC, thereby significantly reducing the cost of operation. The control mechanisms and instrumentation for reactor automation in our powerhouses are similar to those previously used for reactor technologies and are commercially available. We believe that we will benefit from the existing supply chain and the experience of previously operating reactors while also leveraging modernized sensors and software to improve on past designs and enable this level of automation.
We plan to leverage established, agile supply chains from various industries, deviating from the conventional, sluggish, and cost-intensive nuclear supply chains. Our approach capitalizes on the deliberate design choices and compact size of our technology, rendering the necessity of pressurized vessels or exotic materials unnecessary. This approach enables us to collaborate with partners like Siemens, who we have named our preferred supplier for steam turbine generators. We believe that if we can leverage the expertise and established infrastructure of partners like Siemens, it can increase the reliability, scalability, and cost- effectiveness, of our powerhouses, once constructed.
 
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We selected metal-fueled fast reactors as the technology for the Aurora product line for many reasons, but in particular for their extensive operating history. Metal fuel has operated for more than 30 years in the U.S. and has been extensively characterized and qualified for over 50 years, demonstrating its readiness for commercial deployment. We believe that this readiness will help us obtain an NRC license faster than we would with a less-proven technology. We also believe that metal-fueled fast reactors will have lower production costs, in part because of the improved cost economics of metal fuel fabrication. Metal fuel is easy to fabricate compared to alternatives such as tri-structural isotropic particle fuel and we believe it will be significantly cheaper.
To pilot our fabrication process, we partnered with INL for initial casting investigation of the Aurora fuel and prototyping. INL created molds for our specific fuel geometry and used a billet casting furnace to cast several Aurora fuel elements. Additionally, using metal fuel in our powerhouses means that we anticipate that we can operate for longer periods of time without refueling than the currently operating light water reactors in the U.S. This will lead to better fuel utilization and a reduction in fuel movements and transportation, increasing security and decreasing capital and operating costs. The following is an illustration of the Aurora reactor module (left) and section view of the module showing internal components (right):
[MISSING IMAGE: ph_aurorareactor-bwlr.jpg]
Growth Strategies
Our key strategies to grow our business include the following:
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Scalable regulatory approach — We believe our licensing strategy will enable us to accelerate deployment by reducing the regulatory burden for follow-on units. When approved, we believe our reference custom combined license, which will cover all aspects needed to build and operate a plant, including an environmental report, can become a reference point for subsequent custom combined licenses, with changes relating to siting parameters unique to each new powerhouse location. We believe this reference and subsequent combined license approach is a licensing strategy currently unique to us, and we believe it will be key to enabling efficient regulator reviews.
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50 MWe Aurora powerhouse and other expansions to and variants of the Aurora product line — We are continuing to develop the reactor technology powering the Aurora and intend to scale it to 50 MWe for future deployments. We intentionally start small because we believe that we can more easily reduce artificial costs and demonstrate our approach with our initial powerhouse design. However, the larger power output can potentially unlock additional markets, while providing the opportunity for higher return on investment due to increased economy of scale. We have long-term plans to develop even larger powerhouses as well as high-resiliency variants of the Aurora product line to serve customers with unique resiliency needs.
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Development of new products — It is key to our design approach and product development strategy to start with our initial Aurora powerhouse product and build off of that to design more economically
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compelling products that address larger markets, while also working to integrate the supply chain and thereby enable mass production.
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New revenue streams from recycling — We believe our recycling approach has the potential to create additional revenue streams. These could potentially include the sale of used fuel management services, byproducts and specialty isotopes, and recycled fuel.
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Geographic expansion — Our initial target market is the United States, as we believe there is stronger potential customer demand and government support, and because we believe U.S. regulatory approval provides a strong springboard to international deployment. We have significant customer interest internationally, and we expect that interest to grow following our initial commercial operations.
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Potential Customers
We are targeting a number of specific markets that are potentially a strong fit for our Aurora product line. These markets include national defense, factories, industrial customers, off-grid and rural customers, utilities, and data centers. For example, the data center market in Northern Virginia alone, is currently approximated to be 3400MWe. The growth of electricity demand for data centers, which is largely driven by artificial intelligence, is expected to triple by 2030. We believe our solution is a good fit for potential customers in these markets because it will be clean, reliable, and affordable, and is designed to simplify buying power through power purchase agreements and streamlined licensing process. We believe this fit is supported by our non-binding letters of intent with potential customers to provide over 700 MWe. A portion of expressed customer interest to date is not site dependent, and we expect a strong fit with unaddressed off-grid use cases. We believe the siting flexibility of the Aurora is beneficial because our powerhouses could be located near customers and where state and local laws are favorable for deployment.
Of our work with customers, we have so far announced the following potential powerhouse deployments:
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Idaho National Laboratory — We have a site permit granted by DOE, and fuel awarded by INL for the Aurora INL project, for one 15 MWe plant targeting deployment in 2026 or 2027.
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Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative — We announced a partnership with the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (“SODI”) in May of 2023, which includes plans to deploy two 15 MWe powerhouses in Southern Ohio. In addition, we have entered into an Option and Right of First Refusal to Purchase Real Estate (the “Land Rights Agreement”) with SODI for the option to purchase certain parcels of land from SODI in Southern Ohio, for the siting of two 15 MWe powerhouses (the “Land Option”). Subject to the terms and conditions of the Land Rights Agreement, SODI granted us the Land Option in exchange for an upfront fee, which will be credited toward any purchase under the Land Rights Agreement.
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Centrus  — We announced a memorandum of understanding with Centrus. This memorandum of understanding contemplates several potential collaborative programs, including Oklo’s purchase of HALEU from the production facility that Centrus is planning to build in Piketon, Ohio and Centrus’ purchase of electricity from Aurora powerhouses that Oklo would build in Piketon, Ohio.
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Eielson Air Force Base — We announced that the Defense Logistics Agency Energy on behalf of the United States Air Force issued a Notice of Intent to Award (“NOITA”) a contract to Oklo to provide power and heat at the Eielson AFB as part of the Air Force’s micro-reactor pilot program in August 2023. In November 2023, a “pre-filing notice of protest” to the NOITA was submitted to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims by one of the unsuccessful bidders for the contract to provide power and heat to Eielson AFB, which resulted in a rescission of the notice by the Defense Logistics Agency (“DLA”) Energy Office. The DLA has stated in an email that “the rescission of the NOITA was not a revocation of the planned contract.” The DLA further specified that, “it is a procedural requirement while DLA Energy ensures proper documentation of due diligence that was performed during source selection.” The management of the due diligence process falls under the purview of the DLA. As of August 2024, the DLA continues to complete necessary due diligence required to reissue the NOITA.
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Equinix — On the LOI Execution Date, we entered into the February 2024 LOI which confirms Equinix’s interest in purchasing electric energy output from us for a 20-year timeline at a rate to be
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formally specified in one or more future PPAs (subject to the requirement that the price meets the market rate, discount and most favored nation terms contained in the February 2024 LOI).
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Diamondback Energy — We announced a non-binding letter of intent with Diamondback Energy which confirms Diamondback Energy’s interest in purchasing energy output from us for a 20-year timeline at a rate to be formally specified in a PPA.
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Atomic Alchemy — We announced a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Atomic Alchemy Inc. (“Atomic Alchemy”) which confirms our intent form a strategic partnership with Atomic Alchemy to produce isotopes.
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Wyoming Hyperscale — We announced a non-binding letter of intent with Wyoming Hyperscale which confirms our intent to enter into a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement to supply 100 megawatts of clean power to a data center campus.
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Potential Data Center Customer — We have initiated non-binding discussions for letters of intent to sell a significant amount of power to large-scale data center customers.
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Competition
Our competitors include other power generation technologies, including traditional baseload power producers, other advanced nuclear technologies, renewables with or without storage, advanced energy storage, fossil fuels with carbon capture, and combinations of these technologies.
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Traditional baseload — Traditional baseload power includes natural gas, coal, oil and large-scale nuclear.
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Fossil fuels with carbon capture — Fossil fuel sources provide firm, baseload power, but require carbon capture technology to provide clean power. Carbon capture has not been demonstrated to be scalable to meet the need.
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Renewables with or without energy storage — Wind and solar provide clean energy but cannot provide firm, baseload energy due to their intermittency. When paired with energy storage, they can provide a more dispatchable energy supply, but battery storage technology has not been demonstrated to be scalable or cost-effective to meet the need today.
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Other advanced nuclear reactors — There are several advanced reactor technologies in various stages of development, including high-temperature gas reactors, molten salt reactors, fusion technologies, and advanced light water reactor designs.
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Research, Development, and Testing
While we are focused on deploying proven technology, leveraging the significant investments in research and development by the U.S. government, we have worked with external partners on valuable development and testing projects that help to advance our commercial interests.
We have worked with DOE on various projects throughout our history. Since 2016, we have cost-shared with DOE to invest funds into national laboratories to support various activities, including fabricating fuel prototypes, software development, data qualification, and performing heat transport tests as part of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (“GAIN”) program. These projects beneficially allow for companies to provide cost-share and propose direction of DOE funding of R&D at national laboratories, which allows for simple contracting structures, efficient project launches and timelines, and minimal accounting burden for the proposing company since the funding is not received by the company but rather the national laboratory. In total, we have participated in six GAIN projects involving three different national laboratories.
One example of a key GAIN project that is currently underway is a project with Argonne National Laboratory (“ANL”). We were the first company to utilize the Thermal Hydraulic Experimental Test Article (“THETA”), which is a scaled model of the primary coolant loop of a technology similar to ours, installed at ANL’s Mechanism Engineering Test Loop (“METL”) sodium test facility. We have worked with
 
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ANL since 2021 to develop and execute a test program to provide high-resolution and high-quality thermal-hydraulic experimental data in a wide range of conditions of interest to us, with test conditions selected based on relevant scenarios for the Aurora product line. This data provides validation datasets for systems-level and high-fidelity analysis tools related to better quantification of the operating margins of our designs. This improved quantification may enable a future reduction in necessary thermal-hydraulic design margin, allowing our reactors to operate at higher temperatures and higher powers, thereby improving economics and expanding the addressable market.
Intellectual Property
The fundamental underlying technology we use was developed in the 1960s and through the 1990s, including as part of the IFR program. As such, the general technological approach is public knowledge and all original, fundamental patents from that era have since expired. Nevertheless, intellectual property (“IP”) is an essential differentiator for our business, and we seek protection for our IP whenever possible. We rely upon a combination of patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademark laws, along with employee and third-party nondisclosure agreements and other contractual restrictions to establish and protect our proprietary rights. We continually review our development efforts to assess the existence and patentability of new IP. As of September 2024, we have one issued patent and five patent applications pending in the United States. The technology is also export controlled by the U.S. government.
Additionally, we protect our intellectual property in the form of trade secrets. We believe this IP strategy has allowed us to move more quickly by not spending excessive time and resources in the patenting process and has ultimately allowed us to protect information more effectively. Additionally, because we are unique compared to many other nuclear reactor developers in that we have not taken government funding to develop our reactor technology, we are not subject to the governmental requirements and considerations for patenting and share in IP rights with the government. No infringement or trade secret misappropriation has occurred to our knowledge.
We also pursue the registration of our domain names and trademarks and service marks in the United States and in some locations abroad. To protect our brand, as of September 17, 2024, we have four pending trademark applications in the United States.
Employees and Human Capital
We have a highly technical and founder-led team. Co-founders Jacob DeWitte, our Chief Executive Officer, and Caroline Cochran, our Chief Operating Officer, have approximately 20 years and 15 years of experience in nuclear technology, respectively. Their experience includes graduate degrees in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and prior roles in industry and the DOE.
As of September 17, 2024, Oklo had 94 full-time employees, across 25 different states in the United States. Our team members have 11 Ph.D.s and 37 master’s degrees in engineering or science. We also have 6 employees who were formerly NRC staff members, cumulatively representing decades of NRC experience.
Our employees are at the heart of our success and are the driving force behind our company. We actively seek out individuals with exceptional technical and specialized expertise to ensure our technical rigor and excellence. Our team is generally made up of people who are personally passionate to work on our mission, often motivated by the desire to work on solutions to climate change or to support human prosperity, which leads to exceptional teamwork and dedication beyond that inspired by a typical workplace.
As much as we invest in attracting top talent, we are dedicated to their well-being and retention. We place a strong emphasis on promoting wellness initiatives within our organization. These efforts include comprehensive company-sponsored health benefits, insurances, and wellness stipends to a range of wellness programs.
Treating our employees with dignity and respect is nonnegotiable. We believe in fostering a workplace culture that values each individual’s contribution, celebrates diversity, and encourages open dialogue. We are proud to offer fair, competitive, and equitable compensation packages and even extend the option for ownership in the company for those who desire it.
 
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Fostering a culture of recognition and appreciation of our employees’ dedication and hard work cultivates a sense of pride and camaraderie among our workforce, leading to a motivated and engaged team. We believe that investing in our employees and their well-being creates a positive and dynamic work environment, ultimately fueling our success.
At our core, we embrace diversity in thought, experience, perspectives, backgrounds, and capabilities as a catalyst for innovation. We believe this diversity enhances the quality of solutions delivered by our team, knowing that varied viewpoints lead to superior outcomes. Our unwavering commitment to an inclusive culture empowers us to create a work environment that cherishes diverse opinions, values individual skills, and celebrates the unique experiences of our employees. Our team includes significant diversity: 19% of our full-time employees are women, including one of our founders, and approximately 24% belong to historically underrepresented groups. Although the nature of our business is specialized, we have been able to recruit and grow talent with diverse backgrounds. Our team members come from startups, Fortune 500, and global companies and have experience in many industries, including nuclear power, aerospace, automotive, and technology.
Facilities
We have offices in Santa Clara, CA, and Washington, D.C. Our office in Santa Clara is our corporate headquarters and consists of approximately 7,350 square feet of office space that houses our executives and engineering and operations team members. Our Washington, D.C. office consists of approximately 200 square feet of dedicated office space as well as shared conference room and other amenities and houses our government affairs team.
We believe our existing facilities are adequate for our current needs. We are actively evaluating U.S. sites to add new facilities or expand existing facilities as we add employees and expand our operations in the future. We believe suitable additional space will be available on commercially reasonable terms to accommodate our future growth.
Government Regulation
Power plants of any type are often subject to an array of occasionally lengthy approval processes - for instance, local or state approvals, regulated utility approvals, independent system operators, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) approvals. In the case of nuclear power plants, the federal NRC licensing process is the governing process, and the rigor of this federal process largely supersedes state or local requirements. Many customers are interested to know how many hurdles exist within the broader regulatory space.
As described in the regulatory section, the NRC serves as the lead agency for the review and licensing of commercial nuclear power plants. The review is made up of two primary subject areas: a safety review and an environmental review. During the environmental review, the NRC consults with collaborating federal agencies, state, local, and tribal authorities to ensure the relevant parties are aware of and acknowledge the licensing actions being considered. In certain cases, individual states may have additional regulations related to the construction and operation of the nuclear power plant. The environmental review requires the NRC to consider any state, local, and tribal stakeholders. State-level authorities, such as those controlling water access permits and state public utility commissions require compliance by a nuclear power plant if the plant requires water or connects to the electric grid. Notably, as we do not anticipate requiring significant local water resources for every powerhouse deployment, we do not necessarily require permitting by state-level environmental agencies for water accessibility. Additionally, many of the Aurora powerhouse customers do not involve connection to a broader grid and/or an interstate grid, and in such cases, it is expected that the plant would not fall within FERC jurisdiction.
The NRC licensing process also includes a hearing opportunity where members of the public with standing have an opportunity to present arguments for why the licensing action should not be allowed. We expect that the number of people or organizations with standing will be minimal because of the minimal emergency planning zones, especially when compared to traditional nuclear power plants, and that reduces the scope of those whose interest might be affected by the licensing action. In addition, state, local, and tribal challenges are expected to be significantly lower in comparison with most traditional nuclear power plants.
 
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A small case study was provided in our previous application submittal. The NRC’s acceptance of the application for review initiated a time period for public intervention. No petitions to intervene were submitted during the time period, and only an anomalous petition to deny the application was received, outside of the time period, not by any local community member - and this was unanimously thrown out by the NRC. State or local regulators may also require permits or licenses for an Aurora powerhouse or other Oklo commercial facilities.
Export Controls
Our business is or will be subject to, and complies with or will comply with, to certain stringent U.S. import and export control laws, including the Export Administration Regulations from the Bureau of Industry and Security which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”), regulations issued by DOE and regulations issued by the NRC. The regulations exist to advance the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and to further its nonproliferation policies. Export of nuclear technology, also known as technical data, as well as the assistance of U.S. persons to foreign nuclear programs is controlled by DOE under 10 CFR Part 810, whereas the import and export of commodities associated with nuclear technologies is controlled by the NRC under 10 CFR Part 110. Commerce regulates certain “dual use” items, as well as associated foreign assistance. Governmental authorizations may be required before we can export technology, equipment or materials, our services, or to collaborate with foreign entities.
The U.S. government agencies responsible for administering the nuclear export control regulations have a degree of discretion interpreting and enforcing these regulations. These agencies also have significant discretion in approving, denying, or instituting specific conditions regarding authorizations to engage in controlled activities.
Legal Proceedings
From time to time, we may be subject to various claims, lawsuits and other legal and administrative proceedings that may arise in the ordinary course of business. Some of these claims, lawsuits and other proceedings may range in complexity and result in substantial uncertainty; it is possible that they may result in damages, fines, penalties, non-monetary sanctions, or relief. We currently do not have any claims, lawsuits, or proceedings against us that, individually or in the aggregate, would be considered material to our business or likely to result in a material adverse effect on our future operating results, financial condition, or cash flows.
 
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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read together with the audited financial statements, unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. In addition to historical information, the following discussion contains forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ significantly from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause future results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the sections entitled “Risk Factors” and “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” in this prospectus.
Overview
We were founded in 2013 with the goal of revolutionizing the energy landscape by developing clean, reliable, affordable energy solutions at scale. Global demand for reliable, clean energy is growing rapidly, with 63% of Fortune Global companies publicly committing to emissions reductions by 2050 and an expected $2 trillion annual spend on new clean power generation globally by 2030. We are pursuing two complementary tracks to address this demand: providing reliable, commercial-scale energy to customers and selling used nuclear fuel recycling services to the U.S. market.
We are developing next-generation fast fission power plants called “powerhouses.” In our differentiated build, own, and operate business model, we plan to sell power in the forms of electricity and heat directly to customers, which we believe can allow for fast-tracked customer adoption. In addition, we are a leader in the nuclear industry in the development of fuel recycling, which can unlock the energy content of used fuel; we also believe this business unit can complement our market position by vertically integrating and securing our fuel supply chain.
The fast fission technology we are working to commercialize was demonstrated by the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (“EBR-II”), a fast fission plant that was operated by the U.S. government for 30 years. Our powerhouse product line, called the “Aurora,” builds on this legacy of proven and demonstrated technology. Our Aurora powerhouse product line is designed to be inherently safe, to be able to run on fresh or recycled fuel, and to produce 15-50 megawatts electric (“MWe”) and with the potential to expand powerhouse size to produce 100 MWe of electricity. Because the Aurora powerhouses are designed to operate by harnessing the power of high-energy, or “fast,” neutrons, they are expected to be able to tap into the vast energy reserves remaining in existing used nuclear fuel from conventional nuclear power plants, which is currently considered nuclear waste. We estimate there is enough energy in the form of nuclear waste globally to meet the projected U.S. demand for electricity for 100 years with fast fission power plants.
We have achieved several significant deployment and regulatory milestones for deploying our Aurora powerhouses. Notably, we secured a site use permit from the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) for the Idaho National Laboratory (“INL”) site and received a fuel award from INL for a commercial Aurora powerhouse in Idaho. Additionally, we have successfully completed the second phase of the thermal hydraulic testing campaign in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory (“Argonne”).
We announced plans and entered into a land rights agreement for two additional Aurora powerhouses in southern Ohio. Furthermore, we have been tentatively selected to provide power and heat to Eielson Air Force Base. Our robust pipeline of potential customer engagements span a number of industries. We have signed additional non-binding letters of intent with Equinix, Diamondback Energy, and Wyoming Hyperscale which could bring our current total deployment of Aurora powerhouses to over 1,350 MWe in capacity. The early market interest in our solutions exemplifies the potential demand for the size range of the Aurora powerhouse product line and our differentiated business model. Our first Aurora powerhouse is targeted for deployment in 2027.
In addition to deployment milestones, we have made significant progress in our recycling efforts and in securing fuel. The DOE has reviewed and approved the Safety Design Strategy (SDS) for the Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility at INL. We successfully completed the first end-to-end demonstration of the key stages of our advanced fuel recycling process, in collaboration with Argonne and INL. This marks a significant step forward in scaling up fuel recycling capabilities and deploying a commercial-scale recycling facility.
Moreover, we have formed a non-binding strategic partnership with Atomic Alchemy Inc. (“Atomic Alchemy”). This partnership aims to combine Oklo’s expertise in building and operating fast reactors and
 
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fuel recycling with Atomic Alchemy’s expertise in isotope production. Together, we aim to meet the increasing demands for isotopes in medical, energy, industry, and science applications.
Our Business Model
Our primary product will be the energy produced from our Aurora powerhouses once operational. Our planned business model is to sell the energy to customers via power purchase agreements (“PPAs”), as opposed to selling our powerhouse designs. This business model allows for recurring revenue, the opportunity to capture profitability upon improved operational efficiency, and enables novel project financing structures. This business model sets us apart from the traditional nuclear power industry, other companies in the advanced fission industry, and other larger scale energy types such as natural gas. Selling power via PPAs is a common practice within the renewable energy and utilities sectors and indicates that this business model could be feasible for power plants within the size range targeted by our Aurora product line (i.e., starting with 15 MWe and 50 MWe and ranging upward to anticipated sizes of 100 MWe).
The traditional nuclear power industry comprises developers of large (ranging from approximately 600 MWe to over 1,000 MWe) light water reactors that sell or license their reactor designs to large utilities that then construct and operate the nuclear power plant. The developer’s focus on regulatory approval of the design may lock in certain lifecycle regulatory costs that are realized by the owner-operator during construction and operations. As a result, lifecycle cost implications are generally not addressed cohesively between the developer and the owner-operator, and the regulatory strategy does not holistically implement the lifecycle benefits of the technology’s inherent safety characteristics. To date, the advanced fission industry is largely following the historical blueprint of developers seeking design certifications or approvals, and utilities bearing the future burden of licensing. While there are a number of advanced reactor designers developing smaller sized reactors than those traditionally used in the nuclear power industry, most of these developers are generally pursuing regulatory approval of groupings of these smaller reactors as part of singular larger plants, sizes of 200 MWe and up to 1,000 MWe.
In contrast, we plan to be the designer, builder, owner, and operator of our powerhouses and plan to focus on small-scale powerhouses (15 MWe, 50 MWe and up to 100 MWe). As a result, we have an incentive to relentlessly focus on the full lifecycle of a safe, well-maintained, cost-effective powerhouse and holistically implement the benefits of an inherently safe, simple design. We expect this approach to enable us to reduce and manage lifecycle regulatory and operating costs in an integrated fashion, as opposed to the historical model used in the nuclear power industry that divides the incentives and responsibilities between the developer and the utility.
Selling electricity under PPAs follows an established revenue model in global power markets. While this model is more typically used for renewable energy solutions, we believe it is a compelling model for us because of the relatively small size and the lower expected capital costs of our powerhouses when compared with other nuclear power plants. In addition, our model is designed to generate recurring revenue in a way that the traditional licensing model does not. For example, in the traditional technology licensing model, after the sale of the design, recurring revenue is dependent upon the sale of service contracts, including fuel services, which may result in prices being undercut by intermediaries. We expect our powerhouses to be profitable from the first year of operation due to our anticipated favorable unit economics. We also believe this approach will drive unit growth and allow us to ultimately launch higher output versions of our powerhouses.
We believe that our potential customers want to buy power, rather than own or operate power plants, and will prefer affordable solutions that meet their environmental and operational goals. We plan to further accelerate customer adoption by offering minimal to potentially zero upfront costs and quick delivery times. With non-binding letters of intent from potential customers for over 1,350 MWe, we believe our powerhouses are an ideal fit for target markets in decentralized use cases, such as data centers, national defense, factories, industrial customers, off-grid and rural customers and utilities.
In addition to selling power under PPAs, we believe we have an embedded opportunity to enhance our mission with our advanced nuclear fuel recycling technology. We are actively developing nuclear fuel recycling capabilities with the goal of deploying a commercial-scale fuel recycling facility in the United States by the 2030s. Used nuclear fuel waste still contains more than 90% of its energy content, and we believe there is enough energy in the form of used nuclear fuel globally to power the expected electrical needs in the United
 
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States for 100 years with fast fission power plants. More than 90,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel waste have been generated since 1950, and an additional 2,000 metric tons are generated every year. Currently, other countries recycle used nuclear fuel waste, but the United States does not, and there is an enormous opportunity to do so. Our reactors are specifically designed to run on either fresh or recycled nuclear fuel, and nuclear fuel recycling could provide future margin uplift for our power sales business, as well as the potential for new revenue streams.
The Business Combination
On May 9, 2024, we consummated a business combination pursuant to an Agreement and Plan of Merger and Reorganization dated July 11, 2023 (as amended, modified, supplemented or waived, the “Merger Agreement”), by and among us, AltC Acquisition Corp., a Delaware corporation (“AltC”) and AltC Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of AltC (“Merger Sub”). Pursuant to the terms of the Merger Agreement, Merger Sub merged with and into Oklo Inc., with Oklo Inc. surviving the merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of AltC (following the merger Oklo Inc. changed its name to Oklo Technologies, Inc. and herein after referred to as “Legacy Oklo”) (the “Merger” and, together with the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, the “Business Combination”). Upon consummation of the Business Combination (the “Closing”), AltC changed its name to Oklo Inc.
As a result of the Business Combination, and after giving effect to the conversion of all outstanding Legacy Oklo common stock and shares of Legacy Oklo common stock issued upon conversion of Legacy Oklo preferred stock and Legacy Oklo SAFE Notes, which occurred immediately prior to the effective time of the Merger (i) each issued and outstanding Legacy Oklo common stock converted into the right to receive 6.062 shares of newly issued shares of Class A common stock, par value $0.0001 per share (“Common Stock”), and (ii) each stock option to purchase Legacy Oklo common stock (each, a “Legacy Oklo stock option”) converted into the right to receive an option to purchase Common Stock (an “Option”) having substantially similar terms to the corresponding Legacy Oklo stock option, including with respect to vesting and termination-related provisions, except that each such Option represented the right to receive the number of shares of Common Stock equal to the product of (a) the number shares of Legacy Oklo common stock subject to the corresponding Legacy Oklo stock option immediately prior to the effective time of the Merger and (b) 6.062.
In addition, in connection with the Business Combination, eligible holders of Legacy Oklo common stock immediately prior to the Closing have the contingent right to receive up to an aggregate of 15,000,000 shares of Common Stock, which will be issued during the five-year period following the Closing, in three separate tranches (i) upon the satisfaction of certain price targets or (ii) if the Company undergoes a Change in Control, the price per share received by stockholders of the Company in such Change in Control transaction, among other certain conditions and other provisions. In addition, the Sponsor holds 12,500,000 shares of Common Stock subject to vesting during the five-year period following the Closing in four separate tranches upon the satisfaction of certain price targets or in the event of a sale of the Company, among other conditions.
After giving effect to the Business Combination and the redemption of AltC Class A common stock in connection with the special meeting of stockholders on May 7, 2024, there were 122,096,270 shares of Common Stock issued and outstanding. Of those shares, 78,996,459 were issued to holders of Legacy Oklo equity securities in respect of such Legacy Oklo equity securities, representing approximately 64.7% of the Common Stock voting power.
The Company’s Common Stock commenced trading on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) under the symbol “OKLO”, on May 10, 2024.
Key Factors Affecting Our Performance
We believe that our future success and financial performance depend on a number of factors that present significant opportunities for our business, but also pose risks and challenges, including those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors.”
 
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Product Development Plan
We plan to leverage the next-generation fast fission powerhouses that we are developing in order to sell power to a variety of potential customers, including data centers, national defense, factories, industrial customers, off-grid and rural customers and utilities.
Commercial deployment of any advanced fission power plant requires obtaining regulatory approvals for design, construction, and operation. Our regulatory strategy has been focused on a custom combined license application. We submitted an initial custom combined license application with the NRC in March 2020, which was denied without prejudice in 2022, and we are working toward submitting an updated custom combined license application for review. In March 2020, we became the first advanced fission company to submit a custom combined license application, and we remain the only such company to do so. It is uncertain when, if at all, we will obtain regulatory approvals for the design, construction and operation of any of our powerhouses. Our financial condition and results of operation are likely to be materially and adversely affected if we do not obtain such approvals and to the extent this process takes longer or costs more than we expect.
Additionally, we plan to be the designer, builder, owner, and operator of our powerhouses and plan to focus on small-scale powerhouses (15 MWe, 50 MWe and up to 100 MWe). As a result, we have an incentive to relentlessly focus on the full lifecycle of a safe, well-maintained, cost-effective powerhouse and holistically implement the benefits of an inherently safe, simple design. We expect this approach to enable us to reduce and manage lifecycle regulatory and operating costs in an integrated fashion, as opposed to the historical model used in the nuclear power industry that divides the incentives and responsibilities between the developer and the utility. However, this model exposes us directly to the costs of building, owning and operating our powerhouses. Our cost projections are heavily dependent upon fuel and raw materials (such as steel), equipment and technical and construction service providers (such as engineering, procurement, construction firms). The global supply chain, on which we will rely, has been significantly impacted in recent years by inflation, increasing and continued elevated interest rates, instability in the banking sector, war and other hostilities, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other economic uncertainties, resulting in potential significant delays and cost fluctuations. Similar developments in the future may impact our performance from both a deployment and cost perspective.
Plan of Operations
To further our target of deploying our first powerhouse in 2027, during 2024 we plan to be engaged in the following key initiatives:
•
Progress regulatory approval with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) including a Pre-Application Readiness Assessment for our next Combined Operating Licensing Agreement (“COLA”), expected to begin in the second half of 2024.
​
•
Initiate regulatory pre-application related activities with the NRC for licensing of commercial fuel fabrication.
​
•
Continue work related to fuel recycling such as pre-application regulatory alignment efforts with the NRC, research and development both independently and in conjunction with the DOE focused on facility and process design.
​
•
Work with INL on fuel manufacturing, including preparation of documentation for regulatory review and finalization of the facility design.
​
•
Advance partnerships related to fuel enrichment, fuel fabrication, and other key supply chain elements, as well as other procurement activities to expand our fuel sourcing supply chain.
​
•
Execute on key non-fuel elements of our supply chain including, steam turbine generator sourcing, steel, and other construction inputs.
​
•
Progress engineering procurement and construction negotiations for construction of Aurora powerhouses.
​
•
Initiating site preparation for announced facility at the INL.
​
 
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•
Negotiate and execute additional letters of intent to purchase power through power purchase agreements with multiple potential customers.
​
•
Continue to hire additional personnel and implement processes, and systems necessary to deliver our business strategy.
​
For the year ended December 31, 2023 and the six months ended June 30, 2024, our total operating expenses were $18,636,017 and $25,141,366, respectively. We expect our total operating expenses for 2024 to be in the range of $40,000,0000 to $50,000,000.
Nuclear Energy Industry
The nuclear energy industry operates in a politically sensitive environment, and the successful execution of our business model is dependent upon public support for nuclear power, in general, in the U.S. and other countries. Recently, the U.S. government has indicated through bipartisan action that it recognizes the importance of nuclear power in meeting the United States’ growing energy needs. We believe the ADVANCE Act of 2023, recently signed into law, brings several key benefits to the nuclear industry and to us, including licensing fee reductions, reduced NRC licensing timelines, advanced nuclear reactor awards, new Department of Defense opportunities, brownfield site opportunities, enhanced licensing strategies, and enhanced nuclear fuel cycle and supply chain support. However, the current political environment in the U.S. could change at any time, including in response to events and circumstances over which we exercise no control and the perception of such events and circumstances. Additionally, opposition by third parties could delay the licensing that our business model requires. As a result, our performance will depend in part on factors generally affecting the views and policies regulating nuclear energy industry, which we cannot predict over the long term.
Key Components of Results of Operations
Operating Expenses
Our operating expenses consist of research and development and general and administrative expenses.
Research and Development
Research and development (“R&D”) expenses represent costs incurred to develop our technology. These costs consist of personnel costs, including salaries, employee benefit costs, bonuses and stock-based compensation expenses, software costs, computing costs, hardware and experimental supplies, and expenses for outside engineering contractors for analytical work and consulting costs. We expense all R&D costs in the periods in which they are incurred, however, occasionally the reimbursement would be received in the following period.
We have several recycling technology projects awarded as R&D cost-share projects through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy (“ARPA-E”) and the DOE Technology Commercialization Fund (“TCF”). The ARPA-E and TCF projects do not involve any funds being reimbursed to us. A budget was initially approved for each of these cost-share projects, and as certain expenses and capital expenditures for equipment, are incurred, such expenses or capital expenditures are reported to ARPA-E and then a pre-determined percentage of such expenses or capital expenditures are reimbursed by ARPA-E back to Oklo. The expenses are categorized as R&D expenses which are then partially reimbursed.
General and Administrative
Our general and administrative (“G&A”) expenses primarily comprise various components not related to R&D, such as personnel costs, regulatory fees, promotion expenses, costs associated with maintaining and filing intellectual property, meals and entertainment expenses, travel expenses, and other expenditures related to external professional services including legal, engineering, marketing, human resources, audit, and accounting services. Personnel costs include salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation expenses. As
 
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we continue to grow and expand our workforce and operations, and in light of the increased costs associated with operating as a public company, we anticipate that our G&A expenses will rise for the foreseeable future.
Other Income (Loss)
Other income (loss) consists of interest and dividend income and the remeasurement gains and losses related to simple agreements for future equity (“SAFEs”).
Income Taxes
Income taxes primarily consists of income taxes in certain jurisdictions in which we conduct business. We have a full valuation allowance for deferred tax assets, including net operating loss carryforwards and tax credits related primarily to research and development. Prior to the Business Combination, because we are pre-revenue, income taxes were minimal. After the Business Combination, as a result of our interest and dividend income from our investments, federal and state income taxes may be incurred, after available tax deductions, including available carryovers.
Results of Operations
The following tables set forth our results of operations for the periods presented. The period-to-period comparison of financial results is not necessarily indicative of future results.
Comparison of the Three Months Ended June 30, 2024 and 2023
The following tables set forth our historical results for the periods indicated, and the changes between periods:
​ ​ ​
Three Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Operating expenses ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Research and development
​ ​ ​ $ 10,719,142 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 1,833,269 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 8,885,873 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 484.7% ​ ​
General and administrative
​ ​ ​ ​ 7,051,836 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,519,697 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 5,532,139 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 364.0% ​ ​
Total operating expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 17,770,978 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 3,352,966 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 14,418,012 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 430.0% ​ ​
Loss from operations
​ ​ ​ ​ (17,770,978) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (3,352,966) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (14,418,012) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 430.0% ​ ​
Other income (loss) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Change in fair value of simple agreement for future equity
​ ​ ​ ​ (13,126,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (1,122,000) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (12,004,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,070.0% ​ ​
Interest and dividend income
​ ​ ​ ​ 1,715,574 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 137 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,715,437 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Total other (loss)
​ ​ ​ ​ (11,411,385) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (1,121,863) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (10,289,522) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 917.2% ​ ​
Loss before income taxes
​ ​ ​ ​ (29,182,363) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (4,474,829) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (24,707,534) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 552.1% ​ ​
Income taxes
​ ​ ​ ​ (163,621) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ — ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (163,621) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Net loss
​ ​ ​ $ (29,345,984) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (4,474,829) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (24,871,155) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 555.8% ​ ​
Percentage changes that are considered not meaningful are denoted with NM.
Research and Development
The following table sets forth R&D expenses by category:
​ ​ ​
Three Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Payroll and employee benefits of research and development personnel
​ ​ ​ $ 2,839,961 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 1,373,396 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 1,466,565 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 106.8% ​ ​
 
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​ ​ ​
Three Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Stock-based compensation
​ ​ ​ ​ 6,500,640 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 33,684 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 6,466,956 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Subscription and professional fees
​ ​ ​ ​ 463,445 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 81,483 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 381,962 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 468.8% ​ ​
Travel, entertainment and other related expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 380,275 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 105,286 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 274,989 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 261.2% ​ ​
Other expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 534,821 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 239,420 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 295,401 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 123.4% ​ ​
Total research and development expenses
​ ​ ​ $ 10,719,142 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 1,833,269 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 8,885,873 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 484.7% ​ ​
​
R&D expenses increased by $8,885,873 or 484.7% for the three months ended June 30, 2024, compared to the three months ended June 30, 2023. The increase was primarily due to an increase of $1,466,565 in total payroll and employee benefits of research and development personnel attributable to an increase in the weighted-average headcount of approximately 68% and an increase in salary over the prior period, an increase of $6,466,956 in stock-based compensation expenses (primarily from $6,129,200 incremental costs of the modification of Legacy Oklo’s awards for the vested options holders’ contingent right to receive a pro rata share of the Earnout Shares recorded at the Closing), an increase of $381,962 in subscription and professional fees, and an increase of $295,401 in other expenses.
General and Administrative
The following table sets forth G&A expenses by category:
​ ​ ​
Three Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Payroll and employee benefits of general corporate functions and finance personnel
​ ​ ​ $ 1,720,378 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 797,515 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 922,863 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 115.7% ​ ​
Stock-based compensation
​ ​ ​ ​ 1,956,302 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 14,868 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,941,434 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Regulatory fees
​ ​ ​ ​ 145,375 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 62,315 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 83,060 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 133.3% ​ ​
Professional services
​ ​ ​ ​ 2,335,620 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 393,866 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,941,754 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 493.0% ​ ​
Travel, entertainment and other expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 894,161 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 251,133 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 643,028 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 256.1% ​ ​
Total general and administrative expenses
​ ​ ​ $ 7,051,836 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 1,519,697 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 5,532,139 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 364.0% ​ ​
G&A expenses increased by $5,532,139, or 364.0% for the three months ended June 30, 2024, compared to the three months ended June 30, 2023. The increase was primarily due to an increase of $922,863 in payroll and employee benefits of general corporate functions and finance personnel attributable to an increase in the weighted-average headcount of approximately 73% and average salary over the prior period, an increase of $1,941,434 in stock-based compensation expenses (primarily from $1,655,000 incremental costs of the modification of Legacy Oklo’s awards for the vested options holders’ contingent right to receive a pro rata share of the Earnout Shares recorded at the Closing), an increase of $1,941,754 in professional services primarily due to an increase in accounting and tax service fees, and an increase of $643,028 related to travel, entertainment, and other expenses.
 
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Other Income (Loss)
The following table sets forth other income (loss):
​ ​ ​
Three Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Change in fair value of SAFEs
​ ​ ​ $ (13,126,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (1,122,000) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (12,004,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,070.0% ​ ​
Interest and dividend income
​ ​ ​ ​ 1,715,574 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 137 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,715,437 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Total other (loss)
​ ​ ​ ​ (11,411,385) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (1,121,863) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (10,289,522) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 917.2% ​ ​
The loss for change in fair value of SAFEs of $13,126,959 for the three months ended June 30, 2024 represents the remeasurement loss in the fair value related to the SAFEs as compared to the fair value as of March 31, 2024.
Interest and dividend income increased by $1,715,437, for the three months ended June 30, 2024 compared to the three months ended June 30, 2023. The increase was primarily due to an increase in interest and dividend income related to an increase in our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances from the prior year period.
Comparison of the Six Months Ended June 30, 2024 and 2023
The following tables set forth our historical results for the periods indicated, and the changes between periods:
​ ​ ​
Six Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Operating expenses ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Research and development
​ ​ ​ $ 14,379,784 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 3,749,719 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 10,630,065 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 283.5% ​ ​
General and administrative
​ ​ ​ ​ 10,761,582 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2,939,545 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 7,822,037 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 266.1% ​ ​
Total operating expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 25,141,366 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 6,689,264 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 18,452,102 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 275.8% ​ ​
Loss from operations
​ ​ ​ ​ (25,141,366) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (6,689,264) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (18,452,102) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 275.8% ​ ​
Other income (loss) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Change in fair value of simple agreement for future equity
​ ​ ​ ​ (29,919,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (2,495,000) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (27,424,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,099.2% ​ ​
Interest expense
​ ​ ​ ​ 1,856,877 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 462 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,856,415 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Total other (loss)
​ ​ ​ ​ (28,063,082) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (2,494,538) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (25,568,544) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,025.0% ​ ​
Loss before income taxes
​ ​ ​ ​ (53,204,448) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (9,183,802) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (44,020,646) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 479.3% ​ ​
Income taxes
​ ​ ​ ​ (163,621) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ — ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (163,621) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Net loss
​ ​ ​ $ (53,368,069) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (9,183,802) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (44,184,267) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 481.1% ​ ​
Research and Development
The following table sets forth R&D expenses by category:
​ ​ ​
Six Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Payroll and employee benefits of research and development personnel
​ ​ ​ $ 5,217,374 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 2,716,433 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 2,500,941 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 92.1% ​ ​
Stock-based compensation
​ ​ ​ ​ 6,895,388 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 66,999 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 6,828,389 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM% ​ ​
Subscription and professional fees
​ ​ ​ ​ 997,795 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 162,539 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 835,256 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 513.9% ​ ​
Travel, entertainment and other related expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 507,931 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 257,278 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 250,653 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 97.4% ​ ​
Other expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 761,296 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 546,470 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 214,826 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 39.3% ​ ​
Total research and development expenses
​ ​ ​ $ 14,379,784 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 3,749,719 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 10,630,065 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 283.5% ​ ​
 
74
 
R&D expenses increased by $10,630,065 or 283.5% for the six months ended June 30, 2024, compared to the six months ended June 30, 2023. The increase was primarily due to an increase of $2,500,941 in total payroll and employee benefits of research and development personnel attributable to an increase in the weighted-average headcount of approximately 64% and an increase in salary over the prior period, an increase of $6,828,389 in stock-based compensation expenses (primarily from $6,129,200 incremental costs of the modification of Legacy Oklo’s awards for the vested options holders’ contingent right to receive a pro rata share of the Earnout Shares recorded at the Closing), and an increase of $835,256 in subscription and professional fees.
General and Administrative
The following table sets forth G&A expenses by category:
​ ​ ​
Six Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Payroll and employee benefits of general corporate functions and finance personnel
​ ​ ​ $ 2,913,155 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 1,445,507 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 1,467,648 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 101.5% ​ ​
Stock-based compensation
​ ​ ​ ​ 2,229,028 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 29,794 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2,199,234 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM% ​ ​
Regulatory fees
​ ​ ​ ​ 240,682 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 280,469 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (39,787) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (14.2)% ​ ​
Professional services
​ ​ ​ ​ 4,017,523 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 738,524 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 3,278,999 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 444.0% ​ ​
Travel, entertainment and other expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 1,361,194 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 445,251 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 915,943 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 205.7% ​ ​
Total general and administrative expenses
​ ​ ​ $ 10,761,582 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 2,939,545 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 7,822,037 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 266.1% ​ ​
G&A expenses increased by $7,822,037, or 266.1% for the six months ended June 30, 2024, compared to the six months ended June 30, 2023. The increase was primarily due to an increase of $1,467,648 in payroll and employee benefits of general corporate functions and finance personnel attributable to an increase in the weighted-average headcount of approximately 52% and average salary over the prior period, an increase of $2,199,234 in stock-based compensation expenses (primarily from $1,655,000 incremental costs of the modification of Legacy Oklo’s awards for the vested options holders’ contingent right to receive a pro rata share of the Earnout Shares recorded at the Closing), an increase of $3,278,999 in professional services primarily due to an increase in accounting and tax service fees, and an increase of $915,943 related to travel, entertainment, and other expenses.
Other Income (Loss)
The following table sets forth other income (loss):
​ ​ ​
Six Months Ended June 30,
​ ​
2024 versus 2023
​
​ ​ ​
2024
​ ​
2023
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Change in fair value of SAFEs
​ ​ ​ $ (29,919,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (2,495,000) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (27,424,959) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,099.2% ​ ​
Interest and dividend income
​ ​ ​ ​ 1,856,877 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 462 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,856,415 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ NM ​ ​
Total other (loss)
​ ​ ​ $ (28,063,082) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (2,494,538) ​ ​ ​ ​ $ (25,568,544) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 1,025.0% ​ ​
The loss for change in fair value of SAFEs of $29,919,959 for the six months ended June 30, 2024, represents the remeasurement loss in the fair value related to the SAFEs as compared to the fair value as of December 31, 2023.
Interest and dividend income increased by $1,856,415, for the six months ended June 30, 2024 compared to the six months ended June 30, 2023. The increase was primarily due to an increase in interest and dividend income related to an increase in our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances from the prior year period.
 
75
 
Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2023 and 2022
The following tables set forth our historical results for the periods indicated, and the changes between periods:
​ ​ ​
Years Ended December 31,
​ ​
2023 versus 2022
​
​ ​ ​
2023
​ ​
2022
​ ​
$ Change
​ ​
% Change
​
Operating expenses ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Research and development
​ ​ ​ $ 9,763,333 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 6,024,267 ​ ​ ​ ​ $ 3,739,066 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 62.1% ​ ​
General and administrative
​ ​ ​ ​ 8,872,684 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 4,000,544 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 4,872,140 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 121.8% ​ ​
Total operating expenses
​ ​ ​ ​ 18,636,017 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 10,024,811 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 8,611,206 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 85.9% ​ ​
Loss from operations
​ ​ ​ ​ (18,636,017) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (10,024,811) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (8,611,206) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 85.9% ​ ​
Other income (loss) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Change in fair value of simple agreement for future equity
​ ​ ​ ​ (13,717,000) ​ ​ ​ ​