Blue Laser Fusion is hard at work building a fusion generator it plans to commercialize within the decade. Yesterday, the company announced the closing of a $37.5M seed round to advance its growth and tech development.
SoftBank Corp., Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and Itochu Corp. are new participants in the round. Blue Laser Fusion announced the initial $25M of its seed round in July 2023. Investors in that batch included JAFCO Group Co., Ltd., SPARX Group Co., Ltd, and Waseda University Ventures.
“Investing in Blue Laser Fusion represents more than just a financial opportunity,” Maezawa said in a release. “It is an investment in the future of energy and our planet.”
Frickin’ laser beams: Blue Laser Fusion is the brainchild of founder and CEO Shuji Nakamura, who already has a Nobel prize under his belt for co-inventing the tech behind LEDs. The laureate and his cofounder, Waseda University Ventures General Partner Hiroaki Ohta, turned their attention to the fusion energy generation problem in November 2022.
Nakamura’s fusion design uses a hydrogen-boron fuel called HB11 rather than the more conventional deuterium-tritium blend, which, according to Blue Laser Fusion, “is not radioactive, is free from harmful neutrons, yields safe helium elements, and is a naturally abundant mineral.”
- To smash the hydrogen and boron atoms together to create fusion energy, Blue Laser Fusion is planning to use—you guessed it—lasers.
- The laser is intended to pulse energy at incredibly high speeds to induce a fusion reaction.
Blue Laser Fusion is targeting an ambitious timeline for commercialization. The company expects to complete an initial prototype by next year and bring fusion reactors to market by 2030.
Lead Reporter of Ignition
