Fusion Fortnightly | 2026-06-09
No fluff, all facts.
Helion, Focused Energy, and Thea Energy raise big rounds. Pacific Fusion passes a pulsed-power system milestone. CFS releases ARC physics basis.
Fusion sublimes addendum
It seems some people did not get an important point in my The sublimes of specious fusion concepts article last week. The sublimes are (1) not limited to specious fusion concepts and (2) not all negative in and of themselves. In fact, many fusion companies that I consider credible have some number of the sublimes and that is a fine thing. The major point missed was that one should not be distracted by the sublimes in considering fusion companies/concepts, and instead should look at the whole, detailed picture of what is being proposed.
Also, I was disappointed no one got the image reference for that article. I suppose none of my readers spent their summers as I did, listening to their local alt rock radio station while assembling thousands of dinning room chairs. Sublime is a ska punk band with a drugged-up sun logo. I had AI clean it up, as this is a professional newsletter.
Companies
Helion raises $465M Series G. This brings Helion’s total raised to $1.5B, half of what CFS has raised. The valuation puts Helion in the same category as Rippling, Magic Leap, Discord, and Mistral AI and ~50% higher than comparable companies in the energy space like CFS, Fervo, and Oklo, the latter two of which are public. Feels a bit high to me, but what do I know.
Focused Energy raises $240M Series A. It was supported by Rothschild & Co. They’re emphasizing that it is “the largest fully secured Series A financing in the global fusion industry” and, confusingly, sometimes leaving out the “fully secured” part. That bit is in there because both the Inertia and Pacific Fusion Series A rounds were much larger, but they were tranched based on milestones.
Thea Energy raises $100M Series B. Funding will help expand magnet manufacturing, as well as siting and construction of their Eos stellarator.
Avalanche Energy plans to IPO. Given the massive private rounds raised by the other three fusion companies above, this couldn’t be because there isn’t any private capital left for fusion. I suspect the story is similar to TAE and General Fusion: a fusion company that’s overpromised on its ability to deliver fusion power to the private markets driving them into the hot public markets.
Pacific Fusion reaches major pulsed-power milestone that unlocks the next tranche of its Series A. This is an important demonstration of the basic building blocks of its pulsed-power innovation. It produced 440 GW in 80 ns. The prototype pulser module is about a third the size of the full module, of which 156 would be needed for its full-size demonstration machine.
CFS publishes ARC Fusion Power Plant Physics Basis. Naturally, the machine has evolved from the original ARC: the major parameters that having changed include: increasing the fusion power from 525 MW to 1130 MW, gain from 13.6 to 51, major radius from 3.3 m to 4.62 m, and toroidal magnetic field from 9.2 T to 11.4 T. The increases stem from the fact that the mission of the original ARC was to see what a class of graduate students could design to deliver an ITER-level of fusion power (500 MW) with HTS magnets, and the mission of the present ARC is to be a first-of-a-kind fusion power plant with stringent economic and performance requirements, as well as a much higher level of design fidelity.
General Fusion and General Atomics to collaborate on advanced diagnostic systems. The title says it all: the press release is devoid of content on what they will work on together.
Rich Huang of RichRich Capital LLC buys 5.14% of Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III, the General Fusion SPAC-to-be. It is not clear who this Rich is from public information, but could he be “the world’s richest boy” all grown up?
General Fusion amends its SEC Form F-4 with some financial updates.
Realta announced DOE’s approval of its preconceptual design magnetic mirror Hammir. The design point has 20+ T mirror coils (enabled by HTS), 500 MW fusion power, and Q_sci > 5.
Government
JP Allain steps down from Department of Energy leadership. I find it strange that it is characterized as “after completing his tenure,” as he had been appointed inaugural director of the new Office of Fusion only two months earlier. He was appointed DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Associate Director in July 2023. JP has done a great job leading fusion at the DOE, and I appreciate his service!
Tennessee will become the first state in the nation with its own regulatory framework for nuclear fusion machines. Tennessee is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Agreement State, meaning that it regulates nuclear machines at the state level, rather than the federal level. This is common among states with extensive nuclear facilities. Now in Tennessee, “A fusion machine is defined as any machine capable of: Transforming atomic nuclei, through fusion processes, into different elements, isotopes, or other particles; and directly capturing and using the resultant products, including particles, heat, or other electromagnetic radiation.”
UK publishes Draft National Policy Statement for fusion energy generation. This puts fusion in its own distinct development track, rather than shoehorning it into another category, such as fission.
Fusion for Energy announced that Europe’s first four ITER divertor cassette bodies were complete and ready to ship. That’s a big hunk of metal!
European Commission announced the inaugural meeting of the new ENSREG Task Force on Fusion Energy.
People
General Fusion names Joanna Cameron as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Joanna has mostly worked within law firms during her 30-year career, but did spend nearly three years at NexGen Energy, a uranium exploration and development company. She “focused primarily on capital markets transactions and business law matters, including equity and debt financings, initial public offerings, and public and private mergers and acquisitions,” so she is an appropriate hire at this juncture for General Fusion as they work to de-SPAC.
General Fusion alumni Michael Delage and Alex Mossman have launched Basilisk Industries to “change the way the world cuts rock”. Michael was a VP and CTO at General Fusion for 11 years, and Alex was the Senior Director of Applied Physics and Plasma Experiment Operator at General Fusion for 12 years.
Other
Hinetics completed the build of CRUISE, its 5 MW HTS electric motor prototype. The non-fusion HTS magnet applications are starting to open up.