Atomic Alchemy YC Application

Winter 2019Acquired

Atomic Alchemy went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2019 batch as a Industrials company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2019
Industry: IndustrialsManufacturing and Robotics
Team size: 8
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2018

Founders

Thomas EidenFounder

What Atomic Alchemy does

Atomic Alchemy is building a bank of reactors to produce the nuclear material that goes into nuclear medicine. Radiopharmaceuticals are vitally important in biological tracers, diagnostic imaging, and cancer treatments. Currently, the world's supply of Molybdenum-99, the cornerstone of 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures, is sourced from just six government-run, scientific research reactors abroad. Five of these reactors are 45-65 years old and are quickly coming to the end of their operational life. This has cultivated a fragile and lengthy supply chain, at odds with the nature of radioactive material. This issue and its implications do not just effect molybdenum, but any other reactor-based isotope. Many promising cancer therapies are stuck in clinical trials, unable to secure enough material in a timely manner. Research doesn’t even happen because of the difficulty of sourcing any new isotopes. It doesn't have to be this way. Atomic Alchemy is working to solve this by building the world's first scalable radioisotope production facility. This facility will contain the world’s first privately-owned nuclear reactors dedicated to radioisotope production.

Atomic Alchemy's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Atomic Alchemy, Winter 2019 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Atomic Alchemy

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Cancer-curing materials for nuclear medicine

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We build and operate modular nuclear reactors dedicated to producing radioisotopes used in medical diagnostics and cancer treatments. Our product is a scalable facility that supplies reliable isotopes like Molybdenum-99, critical for 80% of nuclear medicine procedures, improving the fragile global supply chain.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live in Idaho Falls, ID where the company is also based.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Idaho Falls is close to the Idaho National Laboratory and other nuclear facilities, giving us access to talent and infrastructure specialized for nuclear technology development and isotope production.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Atomic Alchemy YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Atomic Alchemy's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Atomic Alchemy would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.