Avalanche Tackles the Next Milestone with NSF Grant

Avalanche, the trailblazing startup working on modular compact fusion machines, has secured a substantial $275K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This is the green light for us to dive deep into the efficiency of our Orbitron fusion device.

Over the next year, our scientists and engineers will be heads down, with their ultimate goal being a technical path to achieving net-positive energy (that's Q>1) using The Orbitron.

Robin Langtry, CEO and CoFounder, feels incredibly honored to have been selected through the NSF's rigorous grant-making review process. Speaking on behalf of Avalanche team he looks forward to collaborating with NSF technical staff throughout the project and the opportunities to deepen the scientific understanding of electrostatic plasma confinement devices.

Robin also praised NSF's role in backing groundbreaking and technically daring ideas with the potential to change the game in clean energy, national security, and even space exploration.

For those unfamiliar with NSF, it's an independent agency of the U.S. federal government with a mandate to support research, education, and innovation in non-medical scientific and engineering fields. They don't hand out grants like candy; this is highly competitive. We're talking about less than 15% approval rates in any given funding year.

The grant focuses on computational fusion gain factor (Q) predictions for Orbitron-based compact fusion machines. We're about improving our modeling game and validating Particle-in-Cell (PIC) code using real-world data.

It will deepen our scientific understanding of Orbitron-based reactors, and that's key to diving deeper into ionization and x-ray radiation. Understanding these elements will unlock solutions to maximize Q for small net energy fusion devices. Translation: we're one step closer to clean, limitless energy.

This NSF grant comes after Avalanche's $40M Series A fundraiser and their 200kV electrostatic fusion milestone in April. Leading the charge in that fundraiser was Lowercarbon Capital, with Founders Fund, and Toyota Ventures.