Fusion's funding boom, and the delivery gap - Insurance Dimes

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Jul 9, 2026

Data, Energy

Fusion’s funding boom, and the delivery gap

Private fusion companies have raised more than six billion dollars since 2021. No company has delivered net electricity yet. This traces the money against the promises, and lets you check each one for yourself.

$0Private fusion funding before 2015. The field was government only.

$5B+Raised in 2021 to 2022, after the HTS magnet breakthrough

$6B+Raised since 2023. Zero net electricity delivered so far.

The funding timeline

Tap any company to see what it has actually built, what it has promised, and how those two things compare.

Money raised, sized by round

A promised delivery date, not yet met

Swipe sideways to see the full 2021 to 2033 timeline →

2021<br>2023<br>2025<br>2027<br>2029<br>2031<br>2033

▸Commonwealth Fusion Systems$2B+ raised

Built so farCFS demonstrated a 20 tesla magnet in 2021, the strongest fusion relevant magnet ever built. That result is why it raised $1.8B that December. It is now building a reactor called SPARC in Devens, Massachusetts, funded partly by a further $683M round in August 2025.

What it has promisedCFS wants SPARC to reach a Q value above 2, meaning it puts out more than twice the energy it takes to run, by around 2027. A commercial plant called ARC would follow in the early 2030s.

Worth knowingThe best result any tokamak has ever hit is a Q of 0.67, set in 1997 and never beaten since. SPARC needs roughly three times that. The magnet is a proven breakthrough. The Q above 2 result is still a promise.

▸Helion Energy$500M+ raised

Built so farHelion uses a pulsed approach called a field reversed configuration, burning deuterium and helium 3. It claims it can convert the reaction straight into electricity, skipping the steam turbine most power plants rely on. It has raised roughly $500M in equity across 2021 and 2025, plus $1.7B in milestone based commitments. Sam Altman personally put in $375M and later stepped down from the board. Helion is now building its seventh generation machine, called Polaris.

What it has promisedIn May 2023 Helion signed the fusion industry’s first commercial power purchase agreement, promising Microsoft electricity by 2028.

Worth knowingHelion’s fuel cycle needs temperatures around 600 million degrees, about six times hotter than the deuterium tritium reaction every other company on this page is chasing. No experiment has reached those conditions at a useful scale, and helium 3 is one of the rarest substances on Earth. Most independent physicists see the 2028 date as very unlikely, even if the underlying idea is worth watching.

▸TAE Technologies$1.2B+ raised (history)

Built so farTAE uses a beam driven field reversed configuration and is aiming for a proton boron fuel cycle, which produces almost no neutrons. It raised $250M in July 2022, one round within a longer funding history that totals over $1.2B. It is now building a machine called Copernicus.

What it has promisedA commercial plant in the early 2030s.

Worth knowingProton boron fusion needs even higher temperatures than deuterium tritium, making it arguably the hardest fuel cycle on this page. It also produces the least radioactive waste if the physics works out.

▸Pacific Fusion$900M raised

Built so farPacific Fusion raised $900M in October 2024, one of the largest single rounds in fusion history.

What it has promisedNo specific delivery timeline for Pacific Fusion appears in the sources behind this piece.

Worth knowingA round this large with so little public technical detail is its own signal. Sophisticated investors moved before a public roadmap existed, which says something about how they are pricing the field as a whole.

▸Proxima Fusion$468M raised

Built so farProxima raised €411M, about $468M, in mid 2026, pushing its valuation to nearly €2.5B and making it Europe’s most valuable fusion company. Its design builds on Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, a stellarator that holds the record for the longest high performance plasma confinement ever achieved.

What it has promisedProxima is using this capital to build Alpha, a stellarator meant to demonstrate net energy gain. No public target date for Alpha appears in the sources behind this piece.

Worth knowingA tokamak needs a continuous internal plasma current, which can suddenly collapse and dump energy into the machine. A stellarator does not carry that risk, which matters for something meant to run continuously like a real power plant. The tradeoff is a far more complex shape to build.

▸Inertia$450M raised

Built so farInertia raised $450M in February 2026.

What it has promisedNo public delivery timeline appears in the sources behind this piece yet.

Worth knowingA newer entrant. Worth tracking as more technical detail becomes public.

▸Focused Energy$240M raised

Built so farFocused Energy raised $240M in May 2026.

What it has promisedNo public delivery...