Bristol fusion startup Astral Systems has closed a £23M Series A led by Mercia Ventures to scale production of medical isotopes critical to cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Unlike most fusion companies that are still building toward long-term power generation, Astral already operates reactors and has generated more than £3M in revenue from research contracts.
More than 50 million nuclear medicine procedures a year depend on a global isotope supply chain with no reliable UK domestic source.
Every year, more than 50 million cancer scans and treatments depend on a handful of ageing nuclear reactors scattered around the world to produce the radioactive materials they need. When those reactors go offline for maintenance, accidents, or end-of-life decommissioning, hospitals run short on supplies, and patients wait.
Astral Systems was founded to fix that, and it just raised £23M to prove it can.
