The Founders On Our Stage Raised $500M+ Since They Left It, Less Than 12 months Ago.
Here’s what that tells us about where patient family offices capital is flowing, and why we’re doing it again in San Francisco (April 22) and New York (September 22).
A year ago, we’ve feature these founders on our stages, now the numbers 💸 are talking.
I want to tell you about a conversation that happened today.
Cristian Rabiti, a nuclear physicist, the CEO of NuCube Energy, and a two-time sponsor of our Family Offices Summits in San Francisco and New York… Just closed a $13 million seed round.
One of the investors: The Walton family, one of the ten wealthiest individuals on Earth, with an estimated net worth of $145 billion.
Rob Walton just wrote a multi-million check into a solid-state nuclear microreactor startup whose CEO sat in our room. See his words in this Business Wire article (here).
That’s not a coincidence. That’s the Adaptive Economy working exactly as it’s supposed to.
But you know what? When a year ago we’ve recommended nuclear power companies to our network of family offices… (almost) no one wrote a check alongside us.
(That pissed me off 😤).
In 2026, we’re going to push one highly recommended deal per month. Do not miss the boat!
I. The Thesis, Validated in Real Time
In four years of running these summits, I’ve made one consistent bet: the founders building the most important companies of the next decade are being overlooked by traditional capital, and family offices are uniquely positioned to find them ✅ first.
The data from our 2025 summits is now in. And it’s striking. ⚡️⚡️
Since our speakers left the USS Hornet in San Francisco and the 3 West Club in New York last year, the founders and GPs in our room have raised & closed over $500+ million.
Let me walk you through the numbers, because they tell a story about where patient capital is actually flowing right now.
II. $500M+ Raised by our guests. Here Is Every Round.
🚀 Harbinger Motors: $260M across two rounds in 2025
Ben Dusastre, co-founder and CFO of Harbinger Motors, was one of our NYC speakers & guest at our Abu Dhabi Family office event last December. In January 2025, Harbinger raised a $100M Series B. In November, they came back with a $160M Series C, co-led by FedEx, which simultaneously placed an initial order for 53 vehicles. Their total order book now stands at 4,690 vehicles, worth approximately $500 million. They are in production and shipping.
This is what it looks like when a company transitions from “promising” to “inevitable.”
⚗️ Twelve: $843M+ and counting
Nicholas Flanders, CEO of Twelve, the CO₂-to-fuel unicorn — was one of our NYC speakers and a defining voice in our energy panels. In February 2025, they added $83M to their Series C, with new investors including Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Mitsui & Co., the Development Bank of Japan, and Japan’s Hydrogen Fund. In May, United Airlines Ventures joined as a strategic investor. Their total raised is now estimated above $843 million. AirPlant One, their first commercial facility, is moving toward production.
(Video: Nicholas Flanders at our New York Family Offices & Investors summits in September 2025)
When Amazon, Japan’s sovereign development bank, and a major airline all back the same SAF company within six months of each other, it is worth paying attention.
☢️ Last Energy: $100M+ oversubscribed Series C
Bret Kugelmass, CEO of Last Energy and one of our SF speakers, closed an oversubscribed $100M+ Series C in December 2025, led by Astera Institute. Here is the detail I find most remarkable: their South Wales site has been admitted into UK nuclear licensing, the first new commercial nuclear site to enter UK licensing since 1978. In Texas, they’ve signed a lease at Texas A&M’s RELLIS campus, with reactor criticality targeted for 2026. The total raised is now $164M+.
Nuclear is not coming. Nuclear is here.
⚡ Avalanche Energy: $39M in 2025–2026
Brian Riordan, co-founder and COO of Avalanche Energy, was one of our SF speakers. In July 2025, Washington State awarded them a $10M grant to build their FusionWERX commercial test facility. Then, on February 3rd of this year, two weeks ago — they closed an oversubscribed $29M Series B led by RA Capital Management, with every prior investor re-upping alongside three new institutional names. Their breakthrough: operating their compact fusion device at 300,000 volts, a record for their plasma confinement approach.
⚛️ NuCube Energy: $13M seed, February 19, 2026
And then, yesterday.
Cristian Rabiti didn’t just attend our summits, he invested in them, sponsoring both San Francisco and New York. He’s been building NuCube quietly: a solid-state fission microreactor that produces 1,100°C heat, making it the only nuclear technology that can directly compete with natural gas for industrial applications. The backers before yesterday included Halliburton Labs, Shell GameChanger, Idealab’s Bill Gross, and a DOE GAIN voucher.
Yesterday, Rob Walton led a $13M seed round.
I’ll say it plainly: a $145 billion Walmart heir making a direct, named bet on a nuclear microreactor startup is not a normal thing. It is a signal. The Walton family has historically been one of the most conservative stewards of generational wealth in America. When capital at that tier moves into deep tech at seed stage, it is worth asking why.
III. What This Tells Us About the Adaptive Economy
I’ve been writing about the Adaptive Economy since 2020. The core thesis has never changed: certain transformations, in energy, in industrial infrastructure, in how we move things and power things and build things… are not matters of if, but when 🔮. The question is only who captures the returns.
The $500M+ raised by our 2025 alumni is not just a nice stat. It is evidence that the thesis is playing out, company by company, round by round.
-Harbinger is proving that the electrification of commercial fleets is inevitable, and FedEx just voted with its balance sheet.
-Twelve is proving that industrial CO₂ can become aviation fuel at scale, and the Japanese government’s development bank just voted with its balance sheet.
-Last Energy is proving that small modular nuclear is not a regulatory fantasy, the UK just voted with its licensing regime.
-Avalanche and NuCube are proving that fusion and solid-state fission are not science fiction: RA Capital and Rob Walton just voted with their capital.
The Adaptive Economy is not a prediction. It’s a portfolio being constructed, in real time, by the most patient and sophisticated capital on earth.
And every one of these founders was in our room.
So the question is:
-If you had the opportunity, why did YOU not invest?
-If you are raising capital and didn’t join our investors summits, why not?
IV. The 2026 Summits in San Francisco & New York
This year, we’re doing it again. Twice! 💥
📍 San Francisco Family Offices & Investors Summit April 22, 2026, USS Hornet, Alameda, CA
📍 New York Family Offices & Investors Summit September 22, 2026, 3 West Club, Midtown Manhattan
These are not conferences. They are not networking events. They are curated, single-day gatherings of 60–80 principals, family office CIOs, climate-focused GPs, and the founders of companies that will matter in ten years. Every person in the room is there because they have capital to deploy or a company worth funding.
In 2025, we brought together 280+ family offices and investors representing $22B+ in capital. We’ve hosted representatives of the Rockefeller family office, Bloomberg, the Monaco sovereign family office, and yes, Leonardo Di Caprio’s fund. We’ve put them in the same room as the founders of unicorns and pre-unicorns building the infrastructure of the next economy.
📖 The NuCube/Rob Walton outcome is the clearest example we have of what this format can produce. But it is one of dozens of connections that have turned into conversations, and conversations that have turned into deals.
👋 If you are a family office, LP, or GP allocating into frontier tech, climate tech, AI/robotics infrastructure, or the energy transition, I want you in the room.
If you are a founder of a company that belongs in that thesis, I want you in the room.
In 2026, seats are limited to 200 principals per city, by design (yes, we’ve learned from our sold out mistake in NYC and are now limiting capacity).
V. Why Now, Why This Room
I want to be direct about something.
The macro environment in 2026 is complicated. Rates remain elevated. Public market volatility is high. Traditional portfolios are under pressure. And there is a temptation which I hear it in every conversation I have with family office principals… to wait.
🦾 The founders who raised $500M+ since our 2025 summits did not wait.
✅ The investors who backed them did not wait.
The investors building generational wealth for the next decades did not wait.
The Adaptive Economy rewards anticipation, not reaction. The families who built lasting wealth, the ones we’ve hosted, the ones who wrote the history, did so by moving when others hesitated, into sectors that others hadn’t yet recognized as inevitable.
Energy independence. Industrial decarbonization. Advanced nuclear. Commercial fleet electrification. Sustainable aviation fuels. These are not speculative bets. They are the infrastructure of the next thirty years of economic activity. The question is not whether this capital will flow. The question is whether you are positioned when it does.
Join Us In 2026
If you’d like to attend, speak on our stage or sponsor our 2026 summits series, reach out directly:
→ coalition@theatlascapital.com
San Francisco · April 22, 2026 New York · September 22, 2026
→ atlascoalition.com/upcoming-events
The most important conversations in this space will happen in those rooms. I hope you’ll be in one of them.
Fight the Good Fight.
Djoann Fal Founding Partner, Atlas Capital. Architect @TheAdaptiveEconomy · Co-organizer @Family Offices & Investors Summit
Nota Bene: Full funding data sourced from PR Newswire, Business Wire, ESG Today, GeekWire, TechCrunch, PitchBook, and the Atlas Coalition. All figures USD.
The Family Offices & Investors Summits are official partner events of SF Climate Week and New York Climate Week.