The small modular reactor industry just crossed a capital threshold. In the final weeks of 2025 alone, SMR startups raised $1.1 billion—a bet that smaller reactors can sidestep the massive cost overruns and schedule delays plaguing traditional nuclear projects like Georgia's Vogtle 3 and 4, which ran $20 billion over budget and eight years behind schedule. But the capital surge is masking a harder problem: the U.S. has forgotten how to manufacture at scale. The inflection point is clear—money is moving in. The execution risk is whether startups have the human capital and supply chains to deliver on the manufacturing economics they're promising investors.

The nuclear industry is writing a comeback narrative. After decades of watching projects balloon in cost and timeline, investors are betting on a different model. Smaller reactors. Mass production. Modular design. And the capital is flowing accordingly.

In just the last few weeks of 2025, nuclear startups raised $1.1 billion. The shift is unmissable—this is the industry pivoting away from the Vogtle problem. Georgia's newest reactors, massive traditional plants containing tens of thousands of tons of concrete and fuel assemblies 14 feet tall, ran more than $20 billion over budget and delivered eight years late. The SMR thesis is clean: make them smaller, build them using mass production principles, scale through modularity.

But here's where the narrative gets complicated. The capital is there. Investors are awash in enthusiasm and dollars for this space. What they're missing is harder to fix than a funding round.

Milo Werner, a general partner at DCVC, spent years leading manufacturing at Tesla and Fitbit, scaling production in China across four factories. When she talks about nuclear manufacturing, she's not speculating—she's diagnosing a problem from direct experience. And the diagnosis is blunt: the U.S. has lost its manufacturing base. "I have a number of friends who work in supply chain for nuclear, and they can rattle off like five to ten materials that we just don't make in the United States," she told TechCrunch. "We have to buy them overseas. We've forgotten how to make them."

This isn't abstract. It's the difference between raising capital and actually building factories. Capital is solvable—these startups have it. What they don't have, and what the entire U.S. ecosystem has lost, is human capital with manufacturing experience.

Werner frames it bluntly: "We haven't really built any industrial facilities in 40 years in the United States. It's like we've been sitting on the couch watching TV for 10 years and then getting up and trying to run a marathon the next day. It's not good." The shortage isn't just machine operators—it's supervisors, plant managers, supply chain directors, CFOs who've built factories before. That institutional muscle memory is gone.

Here's what matters for different audiences right now. For builders in the SMR space, the inflection has opened a window, but the runway is longer than capital excitement suggests. Modularity is critical—not because it sounds elegant, but because it lets companies start producing small volumes early, collect data on manufacturing efficiency, and iterate. That learning curve is the real product.

For investors, the calculus is shifting. Capital abundance is no longer the constraint. Human capital scarcity is. Werner's observation about U.S. manufacturing expertise matters because it means startups will either (a) struggle to scale profitably, or (b) need to rebuild factory operations with limited playbook. Companies that bring in manufacturing veterans—people who've actually run production lines—have a significant advantage over those betting purely on engineering and capital.

The timing question: When does this work? Werner's answer is instructive. "Often it takes years, like a decade, to get there," she said, talking about cost reductions from manufacturing learning. That's a decade from now, not next quarter. Startups projecting faster curves are likely underestimating what it takes to move from first production units to cost-competitive mass manufacturing.

This mirrors earlier infrastructure scaling challenges. Remember Wing navigating drone delivery regulatory approvals while building supply chains? Or Bloom Energy scaling solid oxide fuel cells while managing manufacturing complexity? Those companies discovered that regulatory clearance is the opening bell, not the finish line. Manufacturing execution determines whether you survive the next round.

For the SMR industry, the inflection is real—capital is moving, regulatory paths are opening, investor appetite is genuine. But the article's skepticism is justified. The question isn't whether startups can raise money. It's whether they can manufacture at the scale and cost they're projecting. That's a different challenge entirely, one that capital alone can't solve.

The SMR industry is in genuine transition—capital is abundant, regulatory winds are favorable, and investor enthusiasm is real. But this is a capital inflection meeting a manufacturing reality check. For builders, the window opens now to secure manufacturing talent and lock in supply chain advantages early. For investors, the next phase filters for operational expertise, not just technology promise. For decision-makers considering SMR adoption, the realistic timeline isn't 3-5 years but closer to 7-10 as cost curves mature. Watch for which startups are hiring manufacturing veterans, securing supply chain partnerships, and collecting production data from early units. Those moves matter more than funding announcements.