2024 was a standout year for fusion with multiple companies and technology types raising funds. As concerns around meeting the energy demands for AI and data centers grow, technologies like fusion that promise stable, baseload power become more attractive. Key investments and announcements from the past year include:

• Pacific Fusion came out of stealth with $900M committed in milestone-based funding to advance a pulsed magnetic inertial fusion strategy supported by multiple investors from the tech industry including Mustafa Sulayman, Patrick Collison, Eric Schmidt, Reid Hoffman, alongside known fusion investors Lowercarbon Capital, Breakthrough Energy, and other investors.
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• Tokamak Energy raised funds in January and November totaling $175M to advance their tokamak model and develop new pathways to generate revenue through TE Magnetics.
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• Inertial confinement and laser based fusion companies such as Blue Laser Fusion, Xcimer Energy, and Marvel Fusion raised significant rounds this year with Xcimer Energy, raising $100M to develop their facility in Denver.
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• Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced they will site their commercial power plant in Virginia in partnership with Dominion Energy in a region known to have a high density of data centers and likely will see continued load growth.
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• NEO Fusion, based in China, is developing tokamak systems using high-temperature superconducting magnets and announced investments from China National Petroleum Corporation and Hefei Science Island (both state owned organizations) providing $1.3B of capital.

Investments in Fusion by Reactor Type

As we look ahead towards the rest of 2025, we’ll continue to see a diverse range of systems receive funding and strong interest from the tech sector. The large potential market for fusion is encouraging companies and investors to pursue multiple approaches and advance various technologies. However, in China, most efforts have been focused on advancing tokamak models and scaling those systems as quickly as possible.

• Growing Interest from Tech Sector:
  • As Sam Altman (Chairman of Helion) and many other tech leaders have stated, securing the energy required to power AI will require diverse and innovative sources of energy to provide stable baseload power.
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  • Helion raised $425M in a Series F round at the start of 2025 to advance operations of its prototype, Polaris, building on its previous prototype, Trenta, which was developed to achieve 100 million°C. Helion has previously made bold claims on when net electricity would be reached. For example, in a press release in 2021, the company claimed 2024 would be when net electricity was achieved. While no announcements of this kind have been made, continued investments and partnerships signal forward-looking commitments to energy generation. In 2023, Helion signed a PPA with Microsoft to provide fusion power by 2028.

• Targeting New Markets and Applications:
  • Modular Fusion: A growing number of companies are being founded and invested in that promise modular and much smaller fusion technologies that can address a wide variety of markets. Avalanche Energy closed a $40M funding round in 2023 and is targeting applications not traditionally addressed by fusion companies such as space and transportation. Astral Systems raised $5.5M to advance their compact reactors claiming lower temperatures are needed to achieve fusion in their smaller device. Alpha Ring is also advancing a modular fusion reactor using proton-boron fuel. Modular fusion systems can expand potential markets for fusion and tap into other industries such as space, communication, and transport that also require decarbonization.
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  • New Opportunities to Generate Revenue: Multiple companies in the fusion industry are developing systems that can support many industrial customers. Tokamak Energy and their division TE Magnetics will sell magnet technologies to support transportation and health care operations. SHINE Technologies and MIFTI are also developing solutions for the healthcare industry by producing medical isotopes.

• Emerging Fusion Technologies Advancing:
  • Companies developing innovative solutions like Pacific Fusion (pulsed magnetic inertial fusion), Acceleron (muon-catalyzed fusion), and Astral Systems (compact multi-state fusion) have gained investment and various other companies advancing stellarator and z-pinch models are looking to scale alongside more researched tokamak and inertial confinement fusion strategies.
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  • Zap Energy raised $130M in their Series D round in 2024 and at the start of 2025 announced the successful completion of their first milestone as a part of the Department of Energy Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program which operated their reactor continuously for three hours producing over 1,000 plasma shots without failure with at least 100kA input current per shot.
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  • Stellarators, which saw significant funding in 2023, will complete building out pilot plants and reactors in order to achieve first plasma. However, steady-state operations can make stellarators easier to scale once developed and advancements in computer modelling and precision manufacturing can facilitate the construction of more complex structures like stellarators.