Fusion startup Type One Energy raises $200 million for its first commercial plant
The Bill Gates-backed company plans a 400-megawatt stellarator power plant at a Tennessee Valley Authority site in East Tennessee.
Type One Energy, a fusion startup based in Knoxville, Tennessee, has raised $200 million to advance its stellarator technology toward what it aims to make the world's first commercial fusion power plant.
The round, which brings the company's total funding to $400 million, was co-led by Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Clutterbuck Capital, with new investors including Lowercarbon Capital and Siemens Energy Ventures.
Fusion, which joins light atoms to release energy, could generate power without carbon emissions or the long-lived radioactive waste of today's nuclear fission plants, but it requires extreme temperatures and pressure that have so far kept it out of commercial reach. Stellarators are doughnut-shaped devices that use magnetic fields to hold superheated plasma.
The money will fund Project Infinity at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Bull Run site, which includes an engineering prototype and a planned 400-megawatt commercial plant. The company recently received an initial operating license for the project from the state of Tennessee and is also pursuing a second project in the United Kingdom.
"Fusion is approaching the point where deployment, not discovery, defines the challenge," said Carmichael Roberts of Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
This brief is based on reporting by Kenny Fisher, published Oct. 6, 2026, in ESG Today. Read the original: https://www.esgtoday.com/type-one-raises-200-million-to-build-first-ever-commercial-fusion-energy-plant/
This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by an editor before publication.
