Madison-based Realta Fusion on Thursday hosted members of the Wisconsin Fusion Energy Coalition and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Physical Sciences Lab to discuss the future growth of the company — including the construction of a new facility for commercial-scale fusion energy called the Realta Forge — and the statewide fusion industry.
Among the visitors were WEDC Secretary and CEO John Miller and other WEDC employees, and members of the 5 Lakes Institute, a collaborative network that last year launched the Great Lakes Fusion Energy Alliance to unite companies and researchers in support of the region’s fusion energy economy.
Nuclear fusion is a process that combines atomic nuclei to release energy and has the potential to provide an inexhaustible, carbon-free energy supply with no radioactive waste.
“If we can make fusion work, it’s the future of humanity,” said Kieran Furlong, Realta’s CEO.
The Feb. 19 tour followed Gov. Tony Evers’ announcement in his State of the State address of a new initiative called Ignite Wisconsin that is set to bolster Wisconsin fusion. Ignite Wisconsin will make strategic investments in startup companies in some of the state’s fastest-growing sectors, including fusion energy, to support innovation and attract talent and capital to Wisconsin.
Evers also announced in his address a new partnership agreement between the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and UW-Madison’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics to launch a study exploring statewide nuclear energy opportunities.
Furlong, who led Thursday’s tour at the PSL, discussed the company’s recent milestones and projected growth in light of the new initiative.
Founded in 2022, Realta is a UW-Madison spinout that has been working in tandem with the university on a project called WHAM, which is housed at the PSL and approaches fusion with a concept called the magnetic mirror, a type of magnetic confinement.
Magnetic confinement creates plasma and uses strong magnetic fields to contain and heat it until atomic nuclei fuse and release energy. Realta’s fusion energy system is scalable and modular, and the company is on track to reach commercially viable fusion energy by the mid-2030s.
Ahead of the construction of the Realta Forge, which will house the company’s “next step machine” to commercial-scale fusion, Furlong said the company’s focus is to continue pushing the performance of the WHAM machine — which set a world record on its first day of operation in July 2024 with the highest magnetic field ever applied to a fusion experiment — and for which Realta provides $3 million in annual funding.
Realta also recently secured $9.5 million in growth capital from San Francisco-based Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank. That followed a $36 million Series A round in 2025 led by west coast venture capital firm Future Ventures — the earliest investor in Tesla, SpaceX and Skype — and a $9 million 2023 seed round led by another west coast VC firm, Khosla Ventures — an early investor in OpenAI.
Realta has 37 full-time employees, but Furlong said he anticipates that it will employ over 60 workers by the end of 2026. By 2050, the company estimates that the fusion industry will employ roughly 411,000 people total across the United States, including 20,000 in research and development, 198,000 in manufacturing and construction and 193,000 in operations and maintenance.
Furlong said a solid fusion foothold in Wisconsin could strengthen industries in which the state has historically been a leader, such as manufacturing and R&D. Not only will the demand for workers in such areas increase, but so too will an opportunity for Wisconsin to establish itself as a key player in the supply chain as new facilities and machines are constructed with metal, electrical and other equipment.
The company predicts that roughly 386 U.S. plants will be in operation by 2050.
“The Ignite Program sends a signal that Wisconsin is serious about becoming the dominant regional hub for the fusion industry,” Furlong said in a statement. “That’s the long-term goal.
“In the short term, Ignite (and the Wisconsin Fusion Energy Coalition) provides companies like Realta Fusion with new talent via funded Entrepreneurs-In-Residence. We see new companies arising alongside existing companies all aligning towards our common goal of cost-competitive, zero-carbon commercial fusion energy.”
