Back
Fusion unicorn Helion founder David Kirtley to speak at SOSV Climate Tech Summit
Back
Ned Desmond
Ned Desmond
August 3, 2022

Nuclear fusion, the dynamic that powers the stars, is the “holy grail” of clean energy. If we could replicate and sustain fusion on Earth, humanity would have a cheap, plentiful, fossil-free source of energy forever. Yet since the 1950s, when scientists first started talking about fusion-based power, the joke has been that fusion is 30 years away and always will be. But now that fusion startups have raised $5 billion in venture capital and are projecting commercial fusion plants in operation by the 2030s —the wait may be over.

At the SOSV Climate Tech Summit on October 25-26, Dr. David Kirtley, founder and CEO of Helion Energy, tackled that question and many more in a fireside chat. One of three fusion unicorns, Helion has secured $500 million in funding and is currently building Polaris, which Kirtley believes will be the first ever fusion reactor to generate more electricity than it consumes, which is the idea, of course. Check out the session below.

If Helion can achieve this milestone before its top competitors – Commonwealth Fusion Systems and TAE Technologies – it may win the race to open the first commercial fusion plant. No doubt that’s what Helion’s all-star backers in Silicon Valley, including Sam Altman (Helion’s chairman), Reid Hoffman, and Peter Thiel’s Mithril, expect.  Yet at least 30 other startups are vying for that same goal using different fuels and techniques. Which approach to nuclear fusion is best? How and when will we find out? 

Dr. Kirtley explored the last barriers to commercial fusion and the stakes of overcoming them. If fusion goes commercial, will it be the climate change panacea everyone hoped for? 

Learn more about the Summit. 


Dr. David Kirtley is founder and CEO at Helion, a fusion electricity company. A fellow of the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Defense, Dr. Kirtley is a leading authority on advanced fuel fusion generators, plasma-based in-space propulsion systems, and space reentry architectures. He has over 100 publications and 60+ patents and has been pursuing fusion systems since the late 1990s.

Did you know?

unspun’s Weaving Machines Aim to Fix Apparel’s Waste and Carbon Problem

Funded with $57 million from DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital and SOSV, among others, unspun aims to eliminate 1% of global carbon emissions

NotCo’s plant-based foods are on store shelves, but its AI engine “Giuseppe” is the real business

While it might look like a plant-based food company, NotCo is in the data and AI business—and aims to disrupt R&D in many industries that use animal and plant ingredients.

Smartex is Creating the Textile Factory of the Future

Gilberto Loureiro grew up inspecting fabrics in a Portuguese textile factory. With Smartex, he and co-founders Antonio Rocha and Paulo Ribeiro are eliminating textile defects—and their enormous cost both to manufacturers and the environment.

Novoloop Is Upcycling Your Future

Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao have an uncanny talent for finding value where others see waste. Their plastics upcycling company, Novoloop, just raised an $21m Series A to prove it.

Upside Foods Serves Up a Sustainable Future

To find the future of food, you may have to look no further than Emeryville, CA, a small city by the San Francisco Bay, where Upside Foods has built a 53,000-square-foot production facility for cultivated meat, the first of its kind.

Sleeping Beauty

In a timeless dilemma for new parents, Radhika and her husband Bharath discovered early that their baby daughter was a fussy sleeper. The situation left them tired and frustrated; being effective at work became a challenge.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Entrepreneur

In December 2021 Prellis raised a $14.5 million Series B and has signed partnerships with pharmaceutical behemoths including Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi.

Chiu Chau Reboots a Robot into a Billion Dollar Business

It was 2016, and Chiu Chau was on the ropes. He had pitched nearly 150 venture capital firms. No one would invest. Everyone doubted the startup with the open-source laboratory robot.

RxAll’s Life-Saving Deep Tech for African Pharmacies

Adebayo (“Ade”) Alonge and Amy Kao, co-founders of RxAll had nvented a handheld scanner for detecting counterfeit prescription drugs—an illicit, multibillion-dollar industry that kills an estimated 1 million people annually globally and 100,000 in Africa.