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Molten Salt Solutions raises $7M to build US lithium-6, lithium-7 supply for fusion

New Mexico firm Molten Salt Solutions secures $7M funding to scale isotope enrichment for nuclear reactors.

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Molten Salt Solutions (MSS), a New Mexico company, announced on 2026-04-12 that it raised $7 million in an oversubscribed seed round to scale its technology for producing enriched lithium-6 and lithium-7. [1] Empirik, an AI infrastructure startup incubated by Sequoia Capital, announced on 2026-04-07 that it raised $21 million in seed funding from Sequoia, Canapi, and Alumni Ventures and is spinning out as an independent company. [2] Lithium-6 is particularly important for fusion reactors because it can help produce the tritium needed to sustain fusion reactions, while Lithium-7 is used in advanced fission concepts, including molten salt reactors. [3] The raised funds will help move MSS's isotope-enrichment technology from laboratory validation to pilot-scale production, expand its technical and operations teams, and fulfill active customer agreements. [4] The US currently lacks commercial-scale production of either lithium-6 or lithium-7, making domestic enrichment capacity an important part of the country's effort to build a secure nuclear fuel supply chain. [5] Empirik has already onboarded customers including S&P Global, Guardant Health, and a major consumer packaged goods company since launching earlier in 2026. [6] Empirik was co-founded by Avon Puri, Sequoia's chief digital and information officer who previously led infrastructure at Rubrik and VMware, and Sudheer Dhurjati, another Sequoia IT leader, to build an AI tool that predicts system outages by tracking changes and their ripple effects. [7] Empirik was incubated by Sequoia Capital in 2023, and Sequoia appointed Kartik Chandrayana, former CPO at Quantum Metric and observability VP at Salesforce, as its CEO earlier in 2026. [8]
What this stands on
  1. Molten Salt Solutions (MSS), a New Mexico company, announced on 2026-04-12 that it raised $7 million in an oversubscribed seed round to scale its technology for producing enriched lithium-6 and lithium-7. · Interesting Engineering
  2. Empirik, an AI infrastructure startup incubated by Sequoia Capital, announced on 2026-04-07 that it raised $21 million in seed funding from Sequoia, Canapi, and Alumni Ventures and is spinning out as an independent company. · TechCrunch
  3. Lithium-6 is particularly important for fusion reactors because it can help produce the tritium needed to sustain fusion reactions, while Lithium-7 is used in advanced fission concepts, including molten salt reactors. · Interesting Engineering
  4. The raised funds will help move MSS's isotope-enrichment technology from laboratory validation to pilot-scale production, expand its technical and operations teams, and fulfill active customer agreements. · Interesting Engineering
  5. The US currently lacks commercial-scale production of either lithium-6 or lithium-7, making domestic enrichment capacity an important part of the country's effort to build a secure nuclear fuel supply chain. · Interesting Engineering
  6. Empirik has already onboarded customers including S&P Global, Guardant Health, and a major consumer packaged goods company since launching earlier in 2026. · TechCrunch
  7. Empirik was co-founded by Avon Puri, Sequoia's chief digital and information officer who previously led infrastructure at Rubrik and VMware, and Sudheer Dhurjati, another Sequoia IT leader, to build an AI tool that predicts system outages by tracking changes and their ripple effects. · TechCrunch
  8. Empirik was incubated by Sequoia Capital in 2023, and Sequoia appointed Kartik Chandrayana, former CPO at Quantum Metric and observability VP at Salesforce, as its CEO earlier in 2026. · TechCrunch
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