Things You Gotta Know

Avalanche Energy Raises $29 Million Following Plasma Physics Breakthroughs
Seattle-based Avalanche Energy has closed $29 million in new funding led by RA Capital Management, bringing total funding to $105 million. New investors 8090 Industries and Overlay Capital joined the round alongside full participation from existing backers Congruent Ventures, Founders Fund, Lowercarbon Capital, and Toyota Ventures. The capital provides private matching funds for Avalanche’s $10 million Washington State Green Jobs Grant and will scale FusionWERX, its commercial-scale fusion test facility in Richland, Washington, expected to be fully licensed by 2027. In 2025, the company achieved a vacuum high-voltage breakthrough at 300,000 volts (a record 5,000 kV per meter for magneto-electrostatic fusion) and published three peer-reviewed papers on its novel Orbitron plasma confinement scheme. Unlike most competitors targeting grid-scale power, Avalanche is pursuing desktop-sized modular fusion machines for defense, space propulsion, and distributed power applications.

Pacific Fusion Finds a Cheaper Way to Make Its Fusion Reactor Work
Pacific Fusion has announced results from experiments at Sandia National Laboratories that it says will eliminate some costly parts of its pulser-driven inertial confinement fusion approach. The company tested a simplified target design made of aluminum and plastic. Two versions of the small metal cylinder target were tested with different aluminum thicknesses, and the experiments showed that the thinner layer allowed the magnetic field to enter the target more quickly and strongly. Previously, large single-use magnetic coils were needed to pre-magnetize fusion fuel. Eliminating expensive external hardware represents significant savings on reactor construction and simplifies the target-chamber architecture. CTO Keith LeChien emphasized that the experiments validated Pacific Fusion's computer simulations against real-world results at the Z Machine, a critical step for a company that raised $900 million in its Series A and is building a $1 billion demonstration facility in Albuquerque targeting net facility gain by 2030.

Helical Fusion Completes Coil Manufacturing Machine for Its Integrated Demo Device in Collaboration with Sugino Machine
Japan-based Helical Fusion has completed a one-of-a-kind coil manufacturing machine designed to produce the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coils for its integrated demonstration device, Helix HARUKA. The machine was built through a technical collaboration with Sugino Machine at its factory in Toyama Prefecture and will be transported to the demonstration site, with on-site assembly scheduled to begin in 2026. Helical Fusion, which has raised approximately $38 million (JPY 6 billion) to date, is the only company building on more than 60 years of national Helical Stellarator research and targets commercial operation in the 2030s under its Helix Program. The move from successful HTS coil testing to dedicated manufacturing hardware marks a tangible step toward the stellarator’s industrial supply chain buildout.

First U.S.-Israel Fusion Supply Chain Initiative Launches to Accelerate Commercial Scale-Up
MILE Advisory, a U.S.-based strategic consulting firm, has partnered with Israel’s Startup Nation Central to launch a first-of-its-kind initiative mapping Israeli industrial and dual-use technology capabilities to U.S. fusion energy supply chain needs. The initiative comes as fusion supply chain spending grew 73% in 2024 and 31% of fusion companies cite immediate concerns around precision manufacturing availability, according to the Fusion Industry Association. MILE Advisory has built a proprietary database tracking more than 300 Israeli companies, including 114 in energy and dual-use categories, with dedicated mapping of fusion and nuclear supply chain capabilities underway. The launch aligns with the broader U.S.-Israel Pax Silica framework and the DOE’s Genesis Mission, which directs $320 million toward fusion commercialization with supply chain resilience as a priority sector.

William & Mary’s Saskia Mordijck Named Fellow of the American Physical Society
Saskia Mordijck, the Class of 1955 Associate Professor of Physics at William & Mary, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). Mordijck specializes in plasma transport in magnetically confined fusion devices and has conducted research at major facilities including DIII-D, the Joint European Torus (JET), and Alcator C-Mod. She holds a Ph.D. from UC San Diego, received an NSF CAREER Award, and has served on the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Plasma Physics. The fellowship recognizes her contributions to experimental and computational plasma physics that inform the design and performance of future fusion power plants.

Germany Invests €14 Million in Inertial Fusion Laser Technology Under "Fusion 2040" Program
A research consortium coordinated by DESY and the University of Hamburg has received €14 million from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR) under the “Fusion 2040” program for the IFuEL project (Inertial Fusion Energy Laser Development and HED-Analytics). The team is developing laser technology based on cryogenically cooled Yb:YLF crystals that could double the efficiency of alternative high-energy laser technologies while lowering costs by roughly a factor of 10. Partners from the Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf, the University of Rostock, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology will also build a high-intensity laser–matter interaction chamber at DESY to test plasma-facing materials under fusion-relevant conditions. The project strengthens DESY’s role in Germany’s recently announced Fusion Alliance and represents a concrete step in the country’s effort to establish an inertial laser fusion prototype reactor within two decades.

Ontario Power Generation Board Chair Wendy Kei Joins General Fusion as Strategic Advisor
General Fusion has appointed Wendy Kei, Board Chair of Ontario Power Generation (OPG), as a strategic advisor to support public company readiness, audit committee advisory, and financial reporting oversight. Kei brings more than three decades of distinguished public company financial and governance experience, including previous roles as CFO of Dominion Diamond Corporation and chair of numerous publicly traded boards and committees. The appointment comes as General Fusion prepares to become the first publicly traded pure-play fusion company through a SPAC business combination with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III (NASDAQ: SVAC) at an implied equity value of approximately $1 billion. The Vancouver-based company’s Lawson Machine 26 demonstration began operating in early 2025 at 50% commercial-scale diameter as it pursues magnetized target fusion commercialization.

LLNL Offers Tools to Model the Economics of Inertial Fusion Power Plants
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has released its Generalized Economics Model (GEM) for Fusion Technology, a techno-economic spreadsheet tool now available for public download that assesses capital costs, operating expenses, and cost of electricity for inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plants. The model is tailored to diode-pumped solid-state laser drive approaches with indirect-drive targets and enables design optimization through sensitivity studies and parameter scans. GEM was introduced at the inaugural IFE-STARFIRE Winter School at UCLA, hosted by LLNL's Livermore Institute for Fusion Technology (LIFT), one of three DOE-funded IFE hubs established in 2023 with $42 million over four years. A more full-featured version, the Integrated Process Model for Inertial Fusion Energy, is also available for purchase through a software license.

Fusion Energy Base RFQ Portal: Connecting Fusion Machine Developers to the Fusion Supply Chain

Fusion Energy Base has launched a new RFQ Portal designed to connect fusion machine developers with the growing fusion supply chain. With supply chain spending surging 73% to $434 million in 2024 and 63% of companies concerned about supplier availability, the platform arrives at a critical moment. Founder Sam Wurzel describes it as “the first step towards opening a web-based conduit between fusion companies, national labs, and the fusion supply chain.”

Go Deeper >