WED AM News: Realta Fusion raises $36M, targeting mid-2030s for commercial fusion energy; WEC Energy Group and partner exploring resuming nuclear energy production at Kewaunee site

May 14, 2025

— Madison-based Realta Fusion is targeting the mid-2030s for commercial fusion energy production as it continues raising funds and growing its team.

“For some, that may sound like a long way away, but I think in the world of energy that we operate in, that’s actually a pretty normal project timeline … so that’s what we’re targeting,” CEO Kieran Furlong said in a recent interview. “It may seem a long way away, but it will be here before we know it, and we need to be ready, given the energy demands that we’re seeing for humanity.”

The startup company, which is based on technology being developed at UW-Madison, yesterday announced it has raised $36 million in a Series A investment round. Green Bay’s TitletownTech, Bascom Ventures, WARF and several other investors joined the round, which brings the company’s total funds raised to about $50 million.

Existing nuclear power generation is currently limited to fission reactions, which involve splitting heavier atoms into smaller ones to produce energy. Fusion, by contrast, achieves energy production by combining atoms together. While fusion is seen as a cleaner path to nuclear energy, it has yet to be commercialized for this purpose.

The field of fusion research hit a “major scientific threshold” in December 2022, when the U.S. Department of Energy announced the first “break even” fusion reaction, Furlong explained. While fusion occurs constantly within the sun and other stars, this was the first controlled fusion reaction demonstrated by scientists that produced more energy than was put into the system.

“Ourselves and many other fusion startups are working hard to kind of take the decades of scientific research that have been done, but now we’ve got a startup gung-ho mentality and we’ve got private capital going into it,” he said. “And we’re really accelerating the process of fusion energy development and ultimately get to deployment.”

Realta Fusion’s approach uses powerful magnets to create a “cage” to confine energetic plasma where the fusion occurs. Furlong noted this system needs fewer expensive magnets than other designs for fusion machines, which he says is an advantage for going to market.

“We can go smaller, which also means lower capital,” he said.

While Furlong isn’t ruling out utility-scale power generation for fusion, he says that’s “further down our path.” To start, Realta Fusion is targeting large “captive” energy users such as data centers or other industrial plants, where its systems could be used to create energy or heat.

“Look at Microsoft’s new investment they’re making in southeastern Wisconsin, putting in a fusion power plant alongside something like that to deliver the firm, always-on energy that a data center needs would be an ideal use case,” he said. “That would be where we’re converting all of the fusion energy to electricity.”

As the company advances toward applications like this, Furlong plans to keep expanding in Wisconsin. Realta Fusion currently has 18 employees and he says that will likely grow to 30 by the end of the year.

He touted the potential impact from the fusion industry on the state’s workforce and manufacturing sector, noting Wisconsin already has the academic know-how needed to support growth in this area and eventually become a “global hub” for fusion machinery.

“Ultimately, fusion will give us a different kind of energy industry than we have today,” he said. “Right now, today it’s all about the fuel, where do we get the oil, the gas or the coal from. When we’re talking about fusion, the fuel isn’t as important … It’s going to be about the fusion machines. Who’s making those, who’s exporting those and who’s getting the revenue from all that manufacturing.”

— WEC Energy Group and Utah-based EnergySolutions have begun the permitting process for resuming nuclear energy generation at the shuttered Kewaunee Power Station, which was decommissioned in 2013.

EnergySolutions yesterday announced it will start initial planning and scoping work in order to obtain an Early Site Permit for the Kewaunee County facility from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

These permits are granted by the agency to approve proposed sites for nuclear power, independent of a specific plant design or construction permit. They’re valid for 10 to 20 years but can be renewed for up to 20 more years, according to the NRC website.

Decommissioning at the Kewaunee site has been going on for years, and a spokesperson for Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group said “it would not be practical to try to restart it.” Rather than getting the original system back online, the companies are looking at various alternatives including small modular reactors, which are much smaller than traditional nuclear plants.

Still, the spokesperson noted “we are still in the very early stages” of this process.

“If a decision is made to move forward, construction could begin in the first part of the next decade and the plant could come online in 2038 or 2039,” the spokesperson said in an email.

In partnership with WEC Energy Group, EnergySolutions plans to conduct studies on the Kewaunee Power Station site as part of a phased, multi-year effort.

“With rising energy demand driven by data centers, artificial intelligence and industrial growth, the need for reliable, carbon-free power has never been greater,” EnergySolutions President and CEO Ken Robuck said in a statement.

Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken, says he’s encouraged by the “serious structured plan taking shape” for the project, which he supports.

“For years, I have heard directly from constituents and local leaders, particularly in the Town of Carlton, about their strong support for a productive, energy-focused future for the Kewaunee site,” he said in a statement.

He noted there’s been “serious concerns” with prior proposals for the site, but added the new plan is one that community members can support.

“It offers an opportunity to restore economic vitality, ensure long-term energy stability, and bring meaningful investment to our region, while respecting the voices and values of local residents and property owners, which I am committed to ensuring,” he said.

The operating license for the Kewaunee Power Station was first issued in 1973, an NRC overview on the site shows. Up until its decommissioning in 2013, the Kewaunee plant along with Wisconsin’s other nuclear facility, Point Beach, supplied about a fifth of the state’s electricity generation. Since then, the Point Beach plant’s two nuclear reactors have supplied about 15% of the state’s net generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration site.

See more in the EnergySolutions release.

— WEDC has entered an economic development agreement with officials in Mexico aimed at boosting trade and business attraction efforts.

The agency yesterday announced WEDC Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer Sam Rikkers signed a memorandum of understanding with the head of Invest Monterrey, a regional economic development group for the city of Monterey and an investment promotion agency for the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.

The MOU was signed yesterday during the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Washington, D.C.

Rikkers says Monterrey is “an ideal global partner” for Wisconsin. It’s the second-largest city in Mexico and the capital of Nuevo Leon in northeastern Mexico.

“Like Wisconsin, it has an outstanding workforce and its dynamism and competitiveness have attracted more than 4,000 foreign companies from different sectors, including iconic Wisconsin businesses like Johnson Controls, Trane/Ingersoll Rand, and GE HealthCare,” he said in a statement.

See more in the release.

Top headlines from the Health Care Report…

— Sen. Jesse James, who chairs the Mental Health, Substance Abuse Prevention, Children and Families Committee, says he’s “not waiting for Washington to fix things” after $8 million in federal grant money aimed at boosting youth mental health was canceled.

Gov. Tony Evers joined 22 of his fellow Dem governors in opposing options congressional Republicans are considering to cut Medicaid and food stamps.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

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