Marathon Fusion, a company developing fuel processing technology for the fusion industry, announced a fundraising effort led by 1517 Fund and Anglo American, with participation from Übermorgen Ventures, Shared Future Fund, Malcolm Handley, and other leading investors. These investments, along with a CREATE award from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E, bring Marathon Fusion’s total funding to $6.9 million.
Fusion can play a major role in the energy transformation by providing clean, affordable and firm power at terawatt scale. However, to fulfill that vision, the industry needs high-throughput processing of fusion fuel to meet the demands of commercial power plants.
Since being founded last year, Marathon Fusion has been dedicated to improving fuel processing efficiency. Its technology allows fusion power plants to operate with less tritium inventory, enabling smaller facilities and improved operational expenses.
The Breakthrough Energy Fellows program supported Marathon Fusion early on, which also funds promising, early-stage ideas and technologies in the fight against climate change. By providing capital, mentorship, education, and access to the Breakthrough Energy network, the program helps bridge the gap from lab to market.
The company is now working to commercialize this technology to enable rapid, efficient and high-throughput processing of fusion fuel, Marathon aims to reduce onsite tritium inventories and improve plant economics, helping to ensure that fusion has a path to scale to its full potential.
This new funding round will enable Marathon Fusion to accelerate the development and deployment of its fuel processing technology in fusion power plants. And the company has signed Letters of Intent with Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion Energy, two leading fusion startups aiming for the near-term deployment of fusion power plants.
KEY QUOTES:
“Part of the success of the ARC program will lie with industrial innovators to develop systems solving technical challenges inherent to fusion and enabling fusion power plants to be economically viable. We see Marathon’s technology as one of these key enablers. By facilitating continuous operation for fusion devices, efficient fuel systems can provide three major benefits: a lower tritium inventory, cost savings, and an overall simplification of the power plant.”
— Brandon Sorbom, Chief Science Officer, and Co-founder, Commonwealth Fusion Systems
“Fusion fuel is immensely valuable but also highly scarce. Fusion power plants will require a closed fuel cycle, making it crucial to recycle fuel from exhaust back into injection systems as quickly as possible. Fuel processing is one of a few critical engineering problems that really enable the fusion ecosystem as a whole, and Marathon is leading the charge here.”
— Malcolm Handley, founder of Strong Atomics
“Advances in energy creation are about abundance: by using more energy, we can do more as a civilization. Fusion is a clean, incredibly dense source of energy, and crucially, provides a viable replacement for always-on baseload power plants. Marathon Fusion’s technology will enable the growth of the fusion industry beyond breakeven, helping usher in large-scale deployment and a new era of energy creation.”
— Danielle Strachman – founder and General Partner at 1517 Fund
