Realta Fusion Launches with $12 Million in Funding to Develop Fusion Energy
MADISON, Wis. (PRWEB) May 31, 2023 -- Realta Fusion, a new startup in fusion energy, today announced $12 million in financing to develop compact magnetic mirror fusion technology. The company raised a seed investment of $9 million led by Khosla Ventures and received an award of $3 million from the US Department of Energy’s Fusion Development Program. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), through which Realta licensed its core technology, also participated in the seed round.
Fusion energy will be critical in achieving global net zero greenhouse gas emission targets. Despite rapid adoption of renewables like wind and solar, over 80% of global energy is still supplied by fossil fuels and industry, in particular, has proven difficult to decarbonize. Many of the world’s most critical manufacturing processes require firm, always-on sources of high temperature heat.
Realta was spun out of a $10 million ARPA-e funded project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Professor Cary Forest who is also company co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer. It is targeting industrial heat and power as an early application for its fusion technology in which the ability to operate at a wide range of scales is a significant advantage. Realta’s compact magnetic mirror will produce net energy at smaller scales than competing toroidal systems and has the potential to be a lower cost and less complex generator of zero-carbon heat and power.
“We are applying next-generation superconducting magnets and major advances in plasma stability to the relatively mature concept of the magnetic mirror,” said Realta CEO Kieran Furlong. “This funding will enable us to build out our team and complete the physics design for our break-even class device, BEAM, which will be our last experimental step before designing industrial fusion energy systems.”
“At Khosla Ventures we come in early to make bold and impactful bets,” said Alice Brooks, principal at Khosla Ventures. “For the world to get to net zero green-house gas emissions, fusion energy is one of the most powerful accelerators. In Realta, we saw a team that has made significant technical advances and can iterate quickly and cost-effectively to get to commercial fusion energy.”
About Realta Fusion
Realta Fusion is an early-stage fusion energy company which spun out of a large ARPA-e funded project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Realta is developing compact magnetic mirror fusion generators as the lowest capex and least complex path to commercially competitive fusion energy. Realta is targeting the need to decarbonize industrial process heat as the fastest path to full-scale deployment of this technology. The company is based in Madison, WI.
About Khosla Ventures
Khosla Ventures invests in companies that are bold, early and impactful. The firm was started in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, to provide venture assistance to entrepreneurs. Headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., Khosla Ventures invests in a range of areas including AI, climate, sustainability enterprise, consumer, digital health, medtech and diagnostics, therapeutics and frontier technology.
Kieran Furlong, Realta Fusion Inc., http://realtafusion.com, 1 6086201953, [email protected]
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