Zap Energy has begun operations of Century, its new high-rep-rate, liquid-metal-cooled fusion test platform, and closed $130 million of fresh capital, marking significant steps toward a commercial fusion power plant.

Zap’s $130 million Series D was led by Soros Fund Management LLC, with participation by new investors that include BAM Elevate, Emerson Collective, Leitmotif, Mizuho Financial Group, Plynth Energy and Xplor Ventures. Current investors participating in the new round include Addition, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, DCVC, Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital and Shell Ventures.

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The new funding will be used to continue parallel development of both plasma R&D and systems-level plant engineering and integration, including the next generation in the company’s FuZE device series and a cutting-edge pulsed power capacitor bank.

“The race for fusion commercialization has historically been thought of as a triathlon: science, then engineering, then commercialization,” says Zap CEO Benj Conway. “But at Zap, we’re attempting to swim, cycle and run at the same time – such a parallel approach is key to delivering commercial fusion on a timescale that matters. Century is a vital part of the engineering leg and we’re quickly coming up to speed.”

Century is the first fully-integrated demonstration of several fusion power plant-relevant technologies, including one of the largest tests of a plasma-facing liquid metal blanket to date. Century has already demonstrated a test run of more than 1,000 consecutive plasmas in less than three hours into a chamber lined with flowing liquid metal.

The team is now attempting to reach a milestone outlined as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, and hopes to do so by the end of the year.

“From its inception, Zap Energy’s founders had an idea of how a power plant based on our Z-pinch configuration would work,” says Zap Vice President of Systems Engineering Matthew C. Thompson. “Our job is to develop and validate those plans by actually building, testing and maturing key technologies. Century is our next major step in that effort.”

About Zap Energy

Zap Energy is building a low-cost, compact and scalable fusion energy platform that confines and compresses plasma without the need for expensive and complex magnetic coils. Zap’s sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch technology provides compelling fusion economics and requires orders of magnitude less capital than conventional approaches. Zap Energy has 150 employees in Seattle and San Diego and is backed by leading financial and strategic investors.