Helion, a private startup, has raised $425 million in a Series F funding round to build a nuclear fusion power plant. The company, backed by notable investors like Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, aims to have a working fusion reactor by 2028. With this latest investment, Helion’s total funding has surpassed $1 billion, and its valuation now stands at $5.4 billion.
Nuclear fusion, which combines hydrogen atoms to form helium, is considered the holy grail of green energy. It is carbon-free and produces no long-term radioactive waste, while having the potential to generate enough electricity to power small cities. However, achieving sustained fusion reactions that produce more energy than they consume has been a significant challenge.
Helion’s approach to fusion differs from most experimental reactors. Instead of using magnetic or inertial confinement to compress and heat plasma, Helion’s system injects fuel into an hourglass-shaped reactor, heats it to form plasma, and uses magnets to shape and collide the plasma at high speeds.
Helion raises $425 million for fusion
This collision, further compressed by magnets, creates fusion. By directly recapturing the energy as electricity, Helion’s fusion generator can bypass the steam cycle, making the system simpler and potentially more efficient. CEO David Kirtley acknowledged the engineering challenges in achieving high repetition rates at the required pulse powers.
While Helion has achieved fusion on a small scale, it has yet to demonstrate this experimentally or commercially. The company’s seventh-generation reactor, Polaris, is now in operation, but Helion has not shared any results to date. The new investment will help bring more specialized manufacturing in-house, reducing dependency on external suppliers and expediting the development of its commercial-scale power plant to meet the 2028 deadline for supplying electricity to Microsoft.
Helion’s approach to fusion energy has the potential to make a significant impact on the future of sustainable power generation. However, the company still needs to prove its technology can scale up and deliver on its promises.
