Zap’s Fusion Technology Nears Key Milestone

Zap Energy, a fusion energy startup, has raised $130 million in Series D capital as it pushes forward with its Century demonstration system, which aims to validate key components of a commercial fusion power plant.

The Series D funding round was led by Soros Fund Management with participation from several new investors, including BAM Elevate, Emerson Collective, and Mizuho Financial Group. Existing backers, such as Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Chevron Technology Ventures, also joined the round, bringing the company’s total funding to over $330 million.

Zap Energy’s approach to fusion, known as sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch, sets it apart from many of its competitors. Zap’s core technology uses pulses of high-voltage electricity to create and stabilize plasma, which is then confined and compressed to achieve the extreme conditions necessary for fusion. The Century system enhances this approach by integrating flowing liquid metal walls to absorb the heat and neutron flux generated by the fusion reactions. The liquid metal also helps mitigate damage to the system’s electrodes, one of the main challenges in designing durable fusion reactors.

Unlike other fusion reactors that rely on large superconducting magnets or high-powered lasers to contain and stabilize plasma, Zap’s method uses the natural properties of plasma flow to achieve stability. This makes its system smaller and potentially much more cost-effective than traditional designs, a critical factor in the race to commercialize fusion energy.

Zap Energy was founded in 2017 by physicists from the University of Washington and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The company currently has 150 employees between its Seattle headquarters and an office in San Diego.

Century is Zap’s first fully integrated demonstration system that simulates conditions for a future fusion power plant. It operates at 100 kilowatts of input power. It integrates three key technologies: repetitive pulsed power supplies, plasma-facing liquid metal walls, and strategies for mitigating electrode damage caused by extreme heat and neutron flux in fusion reactions.

The Century system marks a significant step forward in the company’s development. It recently demonstrated more than 1,000 consecutive plasma shots within three hours—a milestone that shows progress in building a fusion reactor that could run continuously for extended periods. The ultimate goal is to prove the system can scale to commercial power plant levels.

“The race for fusion commercialization has historically been thought of as a triathlon: science, then engineering, then commercialization,” said Benj Conway, the CEO of Zap Energy. “But at Zap, we’re attempting to swim, cycle, and run simultaneously – such a parallel approach is key to delivering commercial fusion on a timescale that matters. Century is a vital part of the engineering leg, and we’re quickly coming up to speed.”

“From its inception, Zap Energy’s founders had an idea of how a power plant based on our Z-pinch configuration would work,” said Matthew Thompson, Zap’s vice president of systems engineering. “Our job is to develop and validate those plans by actually building, testing and maturing key technologies. Century is our next major step in that effort.”

The new funding will enable Zap Energy to continue developing its plasma research and the engineering required for a full-scale power plant. Specifically, the capital will support the next iteration of the company’s FuZE device series and advancements in pulsed power technology, which are critical for achieving the long-term goal of producing net-positive energy from fusion.

The company’s immediate focus is to meet a milestone outlined by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. This program provides financial support to fusion companies that demonstrate progress in critical areas of fusion technology, and Zap hopes to hit this target by the end of 2024. Success would validate the company’s technology and attract additional support and resources as it moves closer to commercial deployment.

According to Bloomberg, investments in fusion startups surpassed $4 billion by the end of 2023, with several companies, including Zap Energy, making significant progress toward the commercialization of fusion power. Industry experts project that the first commercial fusion plants could be operational by the early 2030s, but significant technical hurdles remain.

Zap Energy’s competitors in the fusion space include firms such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems, TAE Technologies, and Helion Energy, all working on different methods to achieve controlled fusion. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, uses superconducting magnets in its tokamak reactors, while TAE Technologies in California is focused on field-reversed configuration reactors. Helion Energy, another Washington-based startup, is developing its own pulsed fusion technology. These companies have also attracted significant funding and are racing to be among the first to deliver a viable fusion energy solution.

Zap plans to gradually ramp up the Century system’s input power to 100 kilowatts by next year. The ultimate vision is for each Zap fusion module to generate 50 megawatts of electricity—enough to power approximately 50,000 homes. Future fusion plants will have multiple modules working in tandem to produce large-scale energy output.

New York City-headquartered Soros Fund Management invests in transformative technologies. The fund has increasingly invested in energy and sustainability ventures, seeing potential in breakthrough technologies like fusion.

Bill Gates founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), which invests in technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The firm focuses on early-stage companies and manages a $2 billion fund dedicated to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Kirkland, Washington-headquartered BEV was part of Zap’s earlier rounds and remains a major supporter as the company scales its operations.