Insights

March 11, 2025: Oklo Inc. (NYSE: OKLO), an advanced nuclear technology company, announced on March 5, 2025 that it has closed the $25 million acquisition of Crowell client Atomic Alchemy Inc. (“Atomic Alchemy”), a leading innovator in radioisotope production. Oklo intends to use this strategic acquisition to establish a more reliable domestic supply chain for high-value radioisotopes critical to healthcare, research, and defense sectors and provides synergies to Oklo’s fuel recycling and nuclear energy businesses. Demand for radioisotopes is expected to increase significantly over the next decade, while global supply struggles to keep pace due to aging reactor infrastructure and a fragmented global supply chain, which at present is dominated by countries outside the United States. Atomic Alchemy intends to be a low-cost U.S. radioisotope producer that can provide a secure and domestic supply of radioisotopes to U.S. companies commercializing innovative radioisotope applications. With its proprietary VIPR® technology, Atomic Alchemy is building the first scalable production facility to provide a reliable, sustainable source of high-value radioisotopes. Using a vertically integrated model and fuel recycling, in partnership with Oklo, Atomic Alchemy is transforming isotope production to address global shortages, support critical applications, and strengthen national security. The core deal team included Samuel Holland Edwards, Jon O’Connell, Justin Lurie, and Ryan Flynn.

San Fransisco – Jan. 27, 2024: A Crowell team successfully advised Iron Health in its acquisition by digital health startup Metronomic. Iron Health was founded over two years ago with an important mission: partner with OB/GYNs to address gaps in women’s health care through innovation. Since its founding, Iron Health built a novel model of care that provides accessible, equitable, quality women’s health care through a virtual care technology platform and multidisciplinary care team— all knitted into the trusted relationship women have with their OB/GYN. Through a strong track record of commercial partnerships across six states, Iron Health was able to provide access to more than 1 million women in the form of 4,000 patient visits, including behavioral health, weight management, nutrition, gestational diabetes, primary care, and menopause services.

On June 23, 2023, a coalition of companies, including venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst and Founders Fund, and start-up defense technology companies, published an open letter to the Department of Defense (DoD), addressed to Secretary Lloyd J. Austin, petitioning DoD to consider procurement reform to help “overcome barriers to innovation.”  The group asserts these barriers create “antiquated methods for developing requirements and selecting technologies that have drastically limited” DoD’s access to “the best commercial innovation.”  In particular, the coalition endorsed adopting four recommendations pulled from a report by The Atlantic Council, a non-partisan international affairs think tank.

On December 1, 2022, Department of Defense (DoD) Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced the establishment of the DoD Office of Strategic Capital (OSC).  The mission statement of the OSC is to build an “enduring technical advantage” for the United States by helping partner contractors with private investment to develop national security critical technologies, including those related to advanced materials, next-generation biotechnology, and quantum science.  OSC will coordinate with existing organizations such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which promotes acceleration of the military use of commercial technologies.

On November 2, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to approve significant amendments to the exemptions from SEC registration requirements for private companies. The amendments, approved with all three Republican commissioners voting in favor and the two Democrat commissioners voting against, were described in the SEC’s press release as the “next step in the Commission’s efforts to improve the exempt offering framework for the benefit of investors, emerging companies, and more seasoned issuers.”