From Rockville to Wall Street: X-energy Announces IPO

Last week, Montgomery County’s business ecosystem celebrated a major milestone as Gaithersburg-based company X-energy officially entered the public markets. The advanced nuclear technology company priced its initial public offering at $23 per share and raised approximately $1.02 billion, surpassing earlier expectations and signaling strong investor confidence in next-generation energy solutions. According to Yahoo Finance, this IPO values the company at approximately $11.6 billion.

The IPO marks a significant step in X-energy’s growth trajectory and highlights the company’s role as a leader in advanced nuclear innovation. Founded in 2009, the company specializes in small modular reactor (SMR) technology—compact nuclear systems designed to be more efficient and faster to deploy than traditional large-scale reactors. At the center of this innovation is X-energy’s flagship Xe-100 reactor, which uses helium rather than water as a coolant and is designed to deliver reliable, carbon-free power at scale.

This news comes after X-energy celebrated several big wins this past year. Prior to filing to go public in March, the company announced in December that it had closed an oversubscribed Series D funding round of approximately $700 million, bringing the company’s total funding to just over $2 billion. In July, X-energy consolidated its two Rockville offices into a new 125,000-square-foot headquarters at Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg. The company plans to retain 260 full-time employees and create more than 525 new jobs over the next six years.

For Montgomery County, X-energy’s recent milestone reflects the region’s growing role in shaping the future of clean energy and advanced manufacturing. X-energy’s journey from a local startup to a publicly traded company demonstrates how innovative technologies developed in Montgomery County can compete globally.