Valar describes Project NOVA as making it the first startup, or first venture-backed company, to achieve criticality. The joint release itself says LANL operated the core on its own Comet critical assembly, supplying the facility safety envelope, reflectors, instruments and analysis, while Valar built the central core and supplied fuel. Gizmodo's headline framed it as a claim ('California Startup Claims Historic First') and stressed that reaching criticality does not mean a reactor is ready to generate power. The later, stronger claim, the first DOE-authorized reactor built and operated outside a national lab (June 2026), is DOE's own wording (orig-010).

• Los Alamos National Laboratory and Valar Atomics Announce Project NOVA Criticality Milestone in Nevada (Valar Atomics (joint announcement with LANL), 2025-11-18) primary company “The NOVA Core, built by Valar Atomics and operated by LANL”
• California Startup Claims Historic 'First' in Fission Reactor Milestone (Gizmodo, 2025-11-18) news “reaching criticality doesn’t mean the reactor is ready to generate power”