- Type One Energy has raised a $200M Series B to build its stellarator fusion plant in Tennessee.
- Tennessee issued its first fusion-specific licence on August 31, 2026, clearing phase one.
- Fusion firms say a plant needs $2.7B on average, so $200M covers a fraction of the bill.
The Bull Run Fossil Plant in Clinton, Tennessee, stopped burning coal in December 2023. Type One Energy now wants to host a fusion power plant at the site, and it has raised a $200M Series B to fund the next stretch of that plan.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate fund Bill Gates founded, and Clutterbuck Capital co-led the round. Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital, Siemens Energy Ventures, and SiteGround Capital joined as new investors, alongside other backers. The money will fund Type One’s FusionDirect technology development programme and Project Infinity, the plant being developed at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Bull Run site in east Tennessee.
Breakthrough has backed Type One since its 2023 seed round. Before this round, the company had raised more than $160M, including an $87M convertible note that Tech Funding News covered in January 2026.
From coal plant to licensed fusion site
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issued the state’s first fusion-specific licence on August 31, 2026. It lets Type One start the first phase of Project Infinity: Infinity One, a prototype stellarator due for commissioning in 2029, followed by Infinity Two, a 400-megawatt (electric) power plant. Type One targets 2034 for power on the grid.
“The breadth and quality of investors in this funding round demonstrates growing support for our strategy to industrialize the commercial deployment of fusion energy. The Series B financing enables us to remain focused on advancing our stellarator technology and Project Infinity design activities, while working with experienced industrial partners to deliver the first commercial fusion power plant at TVA’s Bull Run site,” said Christofer Mowry, Type One’s chief executive.
Mowry joined in 2023 with more than three decades in energy and infrastructure. He previously ran General Fusion and founded Generation mPower, a nuclear fission company. Type One itself dates to 2019, when colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison left academia to build a power plant. They included Randall Volberg, David Anderson, John Canik, Chris Hegna, and Brian Matthews. Canik is now chief science officer. Chief technology officer Thomas Sunn Pedersen worked at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics from 2011 to 2022, on the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator among other projects.
A stellarator holds plasma, the superheated gas in which fusion happens, inside twisted magnets. Unlike a tokamak, it does not need a large electric current running through the plasma, which Type One says makes the design more stable and easier to run continuously. The company says its design rests on detailed computational modelling and decades of stellarator research.
A partner-led fusion strategy
Type One does not plan to build and run plants itself. As TechCrunch reported, it intends to sell key technology to TVA and other power providers, which would build, own, and operate them. The company argues the biggest barriers to commercial stellarators are now engineering and industrial rather than plasma physics. So it is lining up established companies for financing, manufacturing, engineering, and operations instead of building those skills in-house.
The partner list is growing. TVA issued a letter of intent for Infinity Two in September 2025. In May 2026, Type One formed the UK Infinity Fusion Consortium with Tokamak Energy and AECOM to pursue a UK plant based on the same design. In August 2026, it signed an agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on fusion fuel cycle technologies. Bernard Looney, who ran BP from 2020 to 2023, joined the board in June 2026.
Siemens Energy’s venture arm already knows the sector. Siemens Energy is developing a conceptual power plant design with laser-fusion company Marvel Fusion, whose €113M Series B extension in March 2025 included Siemens Energy Ventures.
“Fusion is approaching the point where deployment, not discovery, defines the challenge. Type One Energy brings together the necessary business and technical leadership, optimized stellarator technology, and industrial relationships that will help move fusion from breakthrough science to commercial power plants. We are pleased to deepen our support as the company advances Project Infinity and its international partnerships,” said Carmichael Roberts, who co-leads the investment committee at Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
“Fusion has the potential to become an important source of reliable, low-carbon energy at scale. This investment strengthens our position in the fusion field as we continue to explore the technologies and collaborations that can help advance commercialization. Type One Energy’s pragmatic, execution-focused approach, strong industry and research network, and experienced and knowledgeable team provide a strong foundation for turning scientific progress into a commercially viable energy solution,” added Enrique Gonzalez Zanetich, a partner at Siemens Energy Ventures.
Fusion funding enters a new phase
The round lands in a market with record money in it. The Fusion Industry Association says 56 fusion companies raised $4.48B in the 12 months to July 2026, taking funding since 2021 to $14.24B. Asked what a commercial plant needs, respondents to the same survey gave an average of $2.7B, in answers ranging from $100M to $10.9B. On that average, $200M covers about 7% of one plant.
Peers have raised more. Helion Energy took $465M at a $15.5B valuation in June 2026 to build its first plant in Washington state. Proxima Fusion raised €411M ($468M) at a €2.4B valuation in July 2026, more than double Type One’s round. The closest comparison is Thea Energy, another stellarator developer, which raised $100M in May 2026 and also targets 2034 for its first commercial plant. Three stellarator companies are now funded to chase the same mid-2030s window.
Type One’s headline figure is also smaller than the plan it described earlier. In January 2026, the company confirmed it was raising a $250M Series B at a $900M pre-money valuation. The announcement does not give a valuation for the $200M round.
Money is not the only constraint. The Fusion Industry Association says companies still need government help on resilient materials and the fusion fuel cycle, and 71% of surveyed companies expect their first plant to deliver power in the 2030s. Infinity One, due for commissioning in 2029, is meant to demonstrate Type One’s modular superconducting magnets and stellarator plasma performance.
The licence settles whether a US state will let a fusion machine operate. Who pays for Infinity Two is still open, and Type One says it will lean on partners for financing. Utilities, banks, and industrial groups will decide how fast that happens.
