Fusion Startup Raises $450 Million in Bid to Make Power Using World’s Biggest Lasers
(Bloomberg) -- Fusion energy startup Inertia Enterprises has raised $450 million to start developing a power plant that hinges on building the world’s most powerful lasers.
The Series A funding round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and includes Threshold Ventures, Long Journey Ventures and GV (formerly Google Ventures). The Livermore, California-based company expects to begin construction in 2030 on a commercial power plant. It also plans to build a facility to make the lasers and a production line to supply millions of tiny pellets made of special materials that they intend to blast to trigger fusion reactions.
The scale of the funding reflects the growing interest in fusion, which holds the promise of abundant clean energy but also comes with daunting engineering and physics challenges. The industry attracted more than $9.7 billion in backing through the middle of last year, according to a Fusion Industry Association report released in July.
Major deals have continued since then, led by an $863 million funding round announced by Commonwealth Fusion Systems in August. Dozens of companies are pursuing the technology, which involves replicating the conditions at the heart of stars, but none has yet demonstrated a viable commercial system.
There are two main approaches to fusion power plants. Commonwealth is one of the leaders seeking to use powerful magnets to control a super-heated cloud of plasma. Inertia is pursuing a different path, using powerful lasers to set off fusion reactions. That method was validated for the first time in a 2022 breakthrough at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
That test used the world’s largest laser to blast a peppercorn-sized capsule. That triggered a fusion reaction with two hydrogen isotopes, releasing more energy than was needed to set it off. Inertia is developing a new laser that Inertia Chief Executive Officer Jeff Lawson said will be a million times more powerful, and the company’s roster includes co-founder Annie Kritcher, who was lead designer of Livermore’s fusion experiments. Inertia plans to use 1,000 lasers, firing 10 times a second at its proposed commercial power plant.
Most of the leading fusion companies are pursuing the magnet-based approach. But none has been able to demonstrate a reaction that delivers more energy than was needed to trigger it, the industry’s most important benchmark. Inertia’s approach and on-staff expertise give it an edge, said Bessemer Ventures partner Byron Deeter.
”Most of the scientific risk has been meaningfully reduced,” he said. “Not eliminated, but meaningfully reduced.”
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