EVERETT: Helion, a fusion energy company based in Washington state, on Thursday announced a $465 million Series G funding round as it pushes to bring commercial fusion power online this decade.
The round, led by Thrive Capital, values the company at $15.5 billion post-money and brings Helion’s total invested capital to $1.5 billion. New investors include Alta Park Capital, Anti Fund, BoxGroup, Lux Capital, Peak XV Partners, and Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford. Existing backers such as Capricorn Technology Impact Funds, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mithril Capital, Dustin Moskovitz through Good Ventures Foundation, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and a university endowment fund also participated.
“Fusion is no longer a future idea, but a path to clean, reliable, affordable always-on electricity at scale,” said David Kirtley, Helion’s chief executive officer. “This funding accelerates our ability to deliver on that promise.”
Helion said the capital will be used to accelerate commercial deployment of fusion, scale manufacturing capacity, and expand the company’s ability to deliver clean electricity to customers.
The funding follows recent milestones achieved by the company’s seventh-generation prototype, Polaris. Helion said Polaris became the first privately funded fusion machine to operate with deuterium-tritium fuel and broke the company’s own record for plasma temperatures, exceeding 150 million degrees Celsius. The company’s first fusion power plant, Orion, is under construction in Malaga, Washington.
“We believe Helion has the technical ambition, pace of execution, and commercial orientation to define a new category of energy,” said Vince Hankes, a partner at Thrive Capital.
Ravi Mhatre, co-founder of Lightspeed Venture Partners, said commercializing fusion “will be critical to meeting the world’s growing energy needs,” adding that “no company is better positioned to do that in the near term than Helion.”
Brandon Reeves, a partner at Lux Capital, called Helion one of a small number of companies that “expand what the world believes is possible,” noting that fusion is becoming central to AI and industrial competitiveness.
Helion is focused on generating zero-carbon electricity from fusion and aims to build the world’s first fusion power plant.
