Professional car thieves have leaned on a quiet radio trick for years to slip past keyless entry systems. Mark Rober, the former NASA engineer known for his glitter bomb videos and hands-on builds, wanted to see exactly how that trick works and whether regular people could defend against it. His latest experiment delivers a clear answer on both fronts.

Rober started by buying a customized relay attack device from a dark net seller accessed through Tor for $12,000 in Bitcoin. Rober believed the risk was worthwhile and put the expensive gadget through a series of preliminary tests after the source provided him with detailed instructions and a warning about self-destruct capabilities in case anyone became too inquisitive. This worked since it could unlock and even start a car, but it took some time and required periodic signal frequency modifications.

When you deconstruct the technology behind these devices, it becomes pretty straightforward. The majority of modern cars transmit a low-pitched radio signal every few seconds to determine whether the accompanying key fob is nearby. When the fob receives the signal and answers with the right code, the car recognizes that the owner is close enough to start the engine or unlock the doors. This is exploited by thieves who creep up on the vehicle and send a louder signal in the direction of the fob, which might be anywhere, such as inside a home or an office. The fob replies as if it is right next to the vehicle.

Rober was determined to make the same car-unlocking device faster and less expensive. He went to a local store, bought a cheap, basic baby monitor for only $12, and tore it up right away. The wireless components of the monitor are ideal for handling that kind of signal, so he tinkered with them to get them to pick up the car’s signal and then rebroadcast it at full blast just next to the fob. He spent less than $200 on his do-it-yourself version, which was a fraction of the price of a real one.

After that, Rober began testing his creation. He would move the antenna around and adjust the power levels in suburban areas until he could consistently unlock the car in ten seconds. After that, he advanced to real-world trials in a controlled setting. Additionally, he was able to obtain a CT scan of the original device without activating its self-destruct features, which greatly aided him in determining which components are truly essential and which may be replaced with less expensive baby monitor technology.

The clincher came when he took the device for a ride in a brand new 2026 Hyundai Sonata, courtesy of streamer JasonTheWeen. Rober got into the car and hotwired it during a Twitch live stream while Jason was busy gaming; since the entire process was being seen by a live audience, it was a slam dunk proof of concept. Later, as promised, Rober presented Jason with a spanking new Rivian.

Then Rober became a little more mischevious, stashing a Sonata with a dozen GPS trackers buried inside in a dangerous neighborhood with a reputation of snatch-and-grab auto thefts. He left it there for five days to see what would happen if someone decided to try their luck – and sure enough, they did. The tracker data revealed that after receiving a parking penalty, the automobile wound up in an impound yard, where a high-definition camera filmed a youngster driving it away.

Rober was first interested in seeing the hack in action, but he soon began to consider how to prevent it from happening again. He discovered that you can effectively stop a relay by simply placing the fob in a metal tin or wrapping it in aluminum foil; bam, the signal is blocked. Problem fixed. Although Rober discovered a few additional solutions to the problem, he also learned that some car manufacturers, such as Kia, are willing to send out free software updates to close the gap.

Microsoft has released a new Insider Preview update for the modern Windows 11 Media Player. However, the app is facing criticism after tests revealed it uses more memory and opens local video files more slowly than the classic 17-year-old Windows Media Player.

The update adds some useful fixes, including better captions, clearer codec errors, and improved file recognition. But the biggest complaints remain higher RAM usage and paid codec support for some common video formats. The update is not available to everyone yet. Media Player version 11.2605.14.0 has only arrived on Experimental Insider builds as part of Microsoft’s June 12 Insider Preview releases.

What’s new in Media Player?

The update brings several small but practical changes. Caption styling now follows Windows system caption settings, so users can adjust font size, color, and background from the operating system. Media Player also shows an indexing banner when it is scanning a fresh media library, which should make it clearer why some songs or videos are not showing up yet.

Microsoft has also improved file recognition to reduce playback errors, added clearer missing codec messages, blocked unnamed playlists, fixed a crash linked to play queue editing, and cleaned up some visual issues. These are useful fixes, especially for an app that ships as the default media player on Windows 11.

Why are users unhappy?

The problem is that these fixes do not address the biggest complaints. According to Windows Latest, the modern Media Player used around 377MB of RAM while idle, compared with about 103.4MB for the legacy Windows Media Player. The newer app also took longer to open a local video file in testing.

For a modern piece of software, this is a bad look. Opening and playing a local video should be one of the easiest things a media player does. If Microsoft’s newer app is slower at that than the version that shipped with Windows 7 nearly 17 years ago, something has clearly gone wrong.

The codec situation is another frustration. HEVC, also known as H.265, is now common on phones, including iPhones and many Android devices. But Windows users may need Microsoft’s paid HEVC Video Extensions app from the Store to play those files in Media Player. The extension costs $0.99.

There is some context here. HEVC is tied to patent licensing, and Microsoft has to account for royalties. Even so, the user experience is not great. Someone can shoot a video on a modern phone, move it to a Windows machine, and then be asked to pay extra just to play it in Microsoft’s own media app. Fortunately, Windows users are not stuck with that setup. Free alternatives like VLC Media Player and MPV can play HEVC videos without requiring Microsoft’s paid codec extension.

Windows 11 version 24H2 has also removed built-in AC-3 support, which can affect Dolby Digital audio playback. For now, the update shows Microsoft is improving Media Player, but the app needs to be faster, lighter, and less dependent on paid codec add-ons to win users over.

Like every piece of gear you wear on your body day in and day out, fitness trackers are incredibly personal. The right tracker for you should be comfortable, accurate, and tailored to your lifestyle, including your preferred workouts and health goals. Do you bike, row, or strength train? Do you run on trails for hours at a time, or do you just want a reminder to stand up every hour? Do you want to wear it on your wrist or your finger, or tuck it into your sports bra?

No matter what your needs are, there’s never been a better time to find a powerful, sophisticated tool to help optimize your workouts or jump-start your routine. We test dozens of fitness trackers every year while running, climbing, hiking, or just doing workout videos on our iPads at night, to bring you these picks.

Our top choice for most people is the Garmin Vivoactive 6 ($300), which works well with Android and iOS, but we also vouch for the latest Oura Ring 5 ($399) and the budget-friendly Google Fitbit Air ($100). For more wearables, check out our guides to the Best Smartwatches, Best Smart Rings, and Best Sleep Trackers.

Best Fitness Tracker Overall

Garmin makes some of the most accurate fitness trackers on the market, and the Vivoactive 6 is the best midrange option for most people. It strikes a solid balance between smartwatch features and fitness tracking, with support for both iPhone and Android users.

Why WIRED recommends: The Vivoactive 6 is accurate, comfortable, and packed with useful wellness features without feeling overwhelming. It uses Garmin’s proprietary algorithms to power features like Morning Report and Body Battery, which provide daily insights into your sleep, recovery, and readiness. It also has built-in satellite connectivity and GPS, so you can track outdoor workouts without bringing your phone along. There’s also incident detection, which alerts emergency contacts if it detects a serious fall.

Garmin’s biggest advantage remains its free Connect platform, which enables health and fitness tracking without requiring a subscription. The company also continues to add new software features through regular updates without putting them behind a paywall.

The trade-offs: Garmin launched Connect+, a $70-per-year subscription with extras like live tracking and access to Garmin’s AI-powered Active Intelligence. Former editor Adrienne So doesn’t think most people need it, but it’s worth noting if you’re looking for a completely subscription-free experience. The Vivoactive 6 may also feel like overkill for casual users who only want basic activity and sleep tracking.

B&H’s bonus coupon drives the price of Apple’s 1TB MacBook Pro with an M5 chip down to $1,529.

The $170 total discount at B&H is in the form of a $150 instant markdown stacked with a $20 in-cart coupon.

Buy 14″ MacBook Pro M5 for $1,529

With the combined savings, the standard 1TB M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch configuration in Space Black is reduced to $1,529, which is the lowest price available per our 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 Price Guide and beats Amazon’s price by $20. Along with 1TB of storage, this configuration has 16GB of unified memory and the 10-core M5 chip.

According to B&H, supply is limited at the discounted price, so now is the time to grab the deal. B&H’s online checkout closes for 24 hours on Friday night, further limiting the window to snap up the savings.

B&H is including free 2-day shipping on this configuration as well, putting the laptop in your hands quickly. Those with B&H’s Payboo card can also take advantage of special financing or a sales tax refund in qualifying states.

You can shop even more MacBook Pro deals in our Apple Price Guides, which are updated throughout the day.

The Swift Boost rescue mission will soon head to space.

Running out of storage on a Mac is common, but Apple’s built-in storage tools are not always great at showing what is actually taking up space. You usually get broad categories, but finding the exact folders, downloads, app files, or old projects causing the problem can still take some work.

Radix is a free, open-source Mac app that tries to make that process clearer. It is a disk space analyzer that scans a folder, drive, or volume and displays the results in an interactive sunburst chart. Rather than digging through folders manually, you get a visual overview of how storage is being used across your drive.

What does Radix actually show?

Radix uses a circular chart where each ring represents another layer of folders. Larger sections take up more space, so it is easier to spot the files or directories that are using the most storage. You can click into sections to drill down, hover for more details, and sort or filter files by size, name, date, or type.

The app is built with Swift and SwiftUI, and its developer, Colin Kim, says it uses native macOS APIs to keep scanning fast. In a Reddit post, Kim said Radix uses under 100MB of RAM on launch and is designed to handle large scans efficiently.

How does it compare with other Mac tools?

Radix is entering a category with several existing options. DaisyDisk is probably the best-known polished version, but it costs $9.99. GrandPerspective and Disk Inventory X are older free alternatives, while SquirrelDisk is open-source but has not been maintained since early 2023, according to Kim.

Radix’s main draw is that it is free, open-source, and more modern-looking than many older disk analyzers. It also supports Quick Look, file metadata inspection, and search across either the current folder or the full scan tree. Everything runs locally, with no account, telemetry, or data collection. Radix supports macOS 14.0 or later.

Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines.

The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises to harness the nuclear reaction that powers the sun to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth. If startups are able to complete commercially viable fusion power plants, then they have the potential to upend trillion-dollar markets.

The bullish wave buoying the fusion industry has been driven by three advances: more powerful computer chips, more sophisticated AI, and powerful high-temperature superconducting magnets. Together, they have helped deliver more sophisticated reactor designs, better simulations, and more complex control schemes.

It doesn’t hurt that, at the end of 2022, a U.S. Department of Energy lab announced that it had produced a controlled fusion reaction that produced more power than the lasers had imparted to the fuel pellet. The experiment had crossed what’s known as scientific breakeven, and while it’s still a long ways from commercial breakeven, where the reaction produces more than the entire facility consumes, it was a long-awaited step that proved the underlying science was sound.

Founders have built on that momentum in recent years, pushing the private fusion industry forward at a rapid pace.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has raised about a third of all private capital invested in fusion companies to date. Its latest round, which closed in August, added $863 million to its coffers, bringing its total raised near $3 billion.

CFS’s Series B2 came four years after its $1.8 billion Series B, which helped catapult the company into the pole position. Since then, the startup has been hard at work in Massachusetts building Sparc, its first-of-a-kind power plant intended to produce power at what it calls “commercially relevant” levels. 

Sparc’s reactor is a tokamak design, which resembles a doughnut. The D-shaped cross section is wound with high-temperature superconducting tape, which, when energized, generates a powerful magnetic field that will contain and compress the superheated plasma. Heat generated from the reaction is converted to steam to power a turbine. CFS designed its magnets in collaboration with MIT, where co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard worked as a researcher on fusion reactor designs and high-temperature superconductors.

The Massachusetts-based CFS expects to have Sparc operational in late 2026 or early 2027. Later this decade, the company says it will begin construction on Arc, its commercial power plant that will produce 400 megawatts of electricity. The facility will be built near Richmond, Virginia, and Google has agreed to buy half its output.

CFS is backed by a long list of investors, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Engine, Bill Gates, and others.

TAE Technologies

Founded in 1998, TAE Technologies (formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy) was spun out of the University of California, Irvine by Norman Rostoker. It uses a field-reversed configuration, but with a twist: after the two plasma shots collide in the middle of the reactor, the company bombards the plasma with particle beams to keep it spinning in a cigar shape. That improves the stability of the plasma, allowing more time for fusion to occur and for more heat to be extracted to spin a turbine. 

In December 2025, TAE announced that it would merge with President Donald Trump’s social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group. The all-stock transaction would value the combined company at $6 billion. TAE would receive $200 million plus another $100 million upon filing paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission. TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer will serve as co-CEO of the combined company alongside Devin Nunes, who had been sole CEO of Trump Media.

The fusion startup had previously raised $150 million in June from existing investors, including Google, Chevron, and New Enterprise. Before the merger, TAE had raised a total of $1.79 billion, according to PitchBook.

Helion

Of all fusion startups, Helion has the most aggressive timeline. The company plans to produce electricity from its reactor in 2028. Its first customer? Microsoft.

Helion, based in Everett, Washington, uses a type of reactor called a field-reversed configuration, where magnets surround a reaction chamber that looks like an hourglass with a bulge at the point where the two sides come together. At each end of the hourglass, the reactor spins the plasma into doughnut shapes that are shot toward each other at more than 1 million mph. When they collide in the middle, additional magnets help induce fusion. When fusion occurs, it boosts the plasma’s own magnetic field, which induces an electrical current inside the reactor’s magnetic coils. That electricity is then harvested directly from the machine.

The company most recently raised $465 million in June in a Series G that valued the company at $15.5 billion. Its previous round, announced in January 2025, totaled $425 million. Altogether, Helion says it has raised $1.5 billion. Investors include Sam Altman, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Reid Hoffman, KKR, BlackRock, Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management, and Capricorn Investment Group.

Pacific Fusion

Pacific Fusion burst out of the gate with a Series A that topped $1 billion, the startup has told TechCrunch. That’s a whopping sum even among well-funded fusion startups. The company will use inertial confinement to achieve fusion, but instead of lasers compressing the fuel, it will use coordinated electromagnetic pulses. The trick is in the timing: All 156 impedance-matched Marx generators need to produce 2 terawatts for 100 nanoseconds, and those pulses need to simultaneously converge on the target.

The company is led by CEO Eric Lander, the scientist who led the Human Genome Project, and president Will Regan. Pacific Fusion’s funding might be massive, but the startup hasn’t gotten it all at once. Rather, its investors will pay out in tranches when the company achieves specified milestones, an approach that’s common in biotech.

Shine Technologies

Shine Technologies is taking a cautious — and possibly pragmatic — approach to generating fusion power. Selling electrons from a fusion power plant is years off, so instead, it’s starting by selling neutron testing and medical isotopes. More recently, it has been developing a way to recycle radioactive waste. Shine hasn’t picked an approach for a future fusion reactor, instead saying that it’s developing necessary skills for when that time comes.

The company has raised a total of $1 billion, according to PitchBook. Investors include Energy Ventures Group, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Nucleation Capital, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The company most recently raised a $240 million round in February led by NantWorks with participation from investors including Deerfield Management, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Oaktree Capital Management, Pelican Energy Partners, and the Sumitomo Corporation of Americas.

General Fusion

Now in its third decade, General Fusion has raised over $600 million. The Richmond, British Columbia-based company was founded in 2002 by physicist Michel Laberge, who wanted to prove a different approach to fusion known as magnetized target fusion (MTF). Investors include Jeff Bezos, Temasek, BDC Capital, and Chrysalix Venture Capital.

In a General Fusion’s reactor, a liquid metal wall surrounds a chamber in which plasma is injected. Pistons surrounding the wall push it inward, compressing the plasma inside and sparking a fusion reaction. The resulting neutrons heat the liquid metal, which can be circulated through a heat exchanger to generate steam to spin a turbine.

General Fusion hit a rough patch in spring 2025. The company ran short of cash as it was building LM26, its latest device that it hoped would hit breakeven in 2026. Just days after hitting a key milestone, it laid off 25% of its staff. CEO Greg Twinney penned an open letter pleading for funding from investors. 

In August, they delivered somewhat, injecting $22 million in a pay-to-play round that one investor called “the least amount of capital possible” to keep General Fusion afloat. Then in November, securities filings in Canada revealed that the company had raised $51.1 million in SAFE notes from nearly 70 investors, the Globe and Mail reported. Altogether, it has raised $612 million, according to PitchBook.

In January, General Fusion said it would go public via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company. Assuming the deal closes as planned, General Fusion could bring in an additional $335 million.

Inertia Enterprises

Only one fusion experiment, the National Ignition Facility (NIF), has surpassed scientific breakeven, and the chief scientist of that endeavor, Annie Kircher, is part of Inertia Enterprises founding team. She’s joined by Mike Dunne, a Stanford professor, and Jeff Lawson, who co-founded Twilio and currently owns The Onion. In April, the startup signed three agreements to commercialize the technology developed at the NIF.

Inertia plans to use lasers to bombard fusion fuel pellets, an inertial confinement design that echoes the one Kircher successfully used at the NIF. Inertia Enterprises emerged from stealth in February with $450 million in Series A funding in a round led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from GV, Modern Capital, Threshold Ventures, and others.

Focused Energy

Germany-based Focused Energy is another fusion startup that traces its lineage to the National Ignition Facility (NIF). In addition to using laser pulses to compress a fuel target, the company has hired Debbie Callahan as its chief strategy officer. Callahan helped design the fuel target at NIF. Her job at Focused Energy will be to figure out how to turn the NIF’s painstakingly crafted fuel target into something that can be mass manufactured at a rate of nearly 1 million per day.

Focused Energy raised an oversubscribed $240 million Series A in June, bringing its total private capital raised to $400 million. The company has also received $200 million in grants. Investors include the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND), Prime Movers Lab, and the utility RWE, which has granted Focused Energy access to a decommissioned nuclear fission power plant it operates.

Tokamak Energy

Tokamak Energy takes the usual tokamak design — the doughnut shape — and squishes it, reducing its aspect ratio to the point where the outer bounds start resembling a sphere. Like many other tokamak-based startups, the company uses high-temperature superconducting magnets (the rare earth barium copper oxide, or REBCO, variety). Since its design is more compact than a traditional tokamak, it requires less in the way of magnets, which should reduce costs. 

The Oxfordshire, U.K.-based startup’s ST40 prototype, which looks like a large, steampunk Fabergé egg, generated an ultra-hot, 100-million degree Celsius plasma in 2022. Its next generation, Demo 4, is currently under construction and is intended to test the company’s magnets in “fusion power plant-relevant scenarios.” Tokamak Energy raised $125 million in November 2024 to continue its reactor design and expand its magnet business. In April, the startup said it would be supplying magnets for the U.K.’s STEP Fusion program, a government program that is working toward a spherical tokamak-based power plant.

In total, the company has raised $336 million from investors, including Future Planet Capital, In-Q-Tel, Midven, and Capri-Sun founder Hans-Peter Wild, according to PitchBook.

Zap Energy

Zap Energy isn’t using high-temperature superconducting magnets or super-powerful lasers to keep its plasma confined. Rather, it zaps the plasma (get it?) with an electric current, which then generates its own magnetic field. The magnetic field compresses the plasma to about 1 millimeter, at which point ignition occurs. The neutrons released by the fusion reaction bombard a liquid metal blanket that surrounds the reactor, heating it up. The liquid metal is then cycled through a heat exchanger, where it produces steam to drive a turbine.

The startup announced a partial pivot in April, saying it will pursue a hybrid power plant that employs both nuclear fusion and fission. It also hired a new CEO, Zabrina Johal, who has expertise in the fission industry. Zap claims the move will help it bring in revenue earlier than fusion alone.

The Everett, Washington-based company has raised $327 million, according to PitchBook. Backers include Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon, Energy Impact Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Bill Gates as an angel.

Type One Energy

Stellarator startup Type One Energy is planning to build a fusion reactor on the site of a retired Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal power plant. The magnetic confinement device is expected to generate 350 megawatts of electricity, and the company hopes to bring it online by the mid-2030s.

Unlike other fusion startups, Type One plans to sell key technology to organizations like the TVA, allowing them to build, own, and operate the equipment, similar to how many fossil fuel power plants are developed today. Type One has raised $269 million to date, including an $87 million equity round in advance of a $250 million Series B that the company is currently raising.

Proxima Fusion

Most investors have favored large startups that are pursuing tokamak designs or some flavor of inertial confinement. But stellarators have shown great promise in scientific experiments, including the Wendelstein 7-X reactor in Germany.

Proxima Fusion is bucking the trend, though, having attracted a €130 million Series A that brings its total raised to more than €185 million. Investors include Balderton Capital and Cherry Ventures.

Stellarators are similar to tokamaks in that they confine plasma in a ring-like shape using powerful magnets. But they do it with a twist — literally. Rather than force plasma into a human-designed ring, stellarators twist and bulge to accommodate the plasma’s quirks. The result should be a plasma that remains stable for longer, increasing the chances of fusion reactions.

Kyoto Fusioneering

With all the startups pursuing fusion power, it was perhaps inevitable that another would pop up to develop components that round out a power plant. The so-called balance of plant, or the parts that sit outside the reactor, range from gyrotrons that heat plasma to heat extraction systems to harvest power from fusion reactions to turn it into electricity. 

Kyoto Fusioneering has made an early bet that if even one fusion startup succeeds in generating enough power to sell to the grid, that the industry will need a supplier for the balance of plant and the expertise to integrate it into whichever fusion technologies win out.

Venture capitalists appear to agree, having invested $191 million in Kyoto Fusioneering. Investors include 31Ventures, In-Q-Tel, JIC Venture Growth Investments, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment.

Marvel Fusion

Marvel Fusion follows the inertial confinement approach, the same basic technique that the National Ignition Facility used to prove that controlled nuclear fusion reactions could produce more power than was needed to kick them off. Marvel fires powerful lasers at a target embedded with silicon nanostructures that cascade under the bombardment, compressing the fuel to the point of ignition. Because the target is made using silicon, it should be relatively simple to manufacture, leaning on the semiconductor manufacturing industry’s decades of experience.

The inertial confinement fusion startup is building a demonstration facility in collaboration with Colorado State University, which it expects to have operational by 2027. Munich-based Marvel has raised a total of $162 million from investors including b2venture, Deutsche Telekom, Earlybird, and HV Capital with Taavet Hinrikus and Albert Wenger as angels.

Thea Energy

Thea Energy is betting its pixel-inspired magnets will help it build a stellarator for less money. Stellarators can keep plasmas burning for long periods of time — a boon when it comes to running a commercial power plant — but to do so, they require twisty magnetic fields. Most stellarators build magnets that mimic that complex shape, but Thea Energy thinks that by wreathing its doughnut-shaped reactor in dozens of smaller magnets, it can use control software to create the necessary kinks.

In May, Thea raised $100 million in a Series B led by the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, just over two years after a $20 million Series A. Across all rounds, the startup has raised $130 million in private capital. Other investors include Prelude Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Hitachi Ventures, and Emerald Technology Ventures.

First Light Fusion

Unlike many other fusion startups, First Light Fusion doesn’t use magnets to generate the conditions necessary for fusion. Instead, it follows an approach known as inertial confinement, in which fusion fuel pellets are compressed until they ignite. 

But even then, First Light doesn’t hew to orthodoxy. Most attempts at inertial confinement use lasers to do the dirty work, following the lead of the National Ignition Facility, which produced a groundbreaking experiment in 2022. Rather, First Light fires a projectile at a target using a two-stage gun; the first stage uses gunpowder to fire a plastic piston that compresses hydrogen to 145,000 psi, which then launches the projectile. The target is designed to amplify the force of the impact so it compresses the fuel to the point of ignition.

In March 2025, First Light announced that it would not pursue building its own power plant, instead offering its core technologies to other companies to build one. A spokesperson for First Light said that it is planning to build “pulsed power capability that would act as our demonstrator plant but would have other science and defense applications.” In other words, the company was dropping its plans for a power plan in a quest for revenue.

Based in Oxfordshire, U.K., First Light has raised $108 million from investors including Invesco, IP Group, and Tencent, according to PitchBook.

Xcimer

Though nothing about fusion can be described as simple, Xcimer takes a relatively straightforward approach: follow the basic science that’s behind the National Ignition Facility’s breakthrough net-positive experiment and redesign the technology that underpins it from the ground up. The Colorado-based startup is planning to build a 10-megajoule laser system, 5x more powerful than the NIF setup that made history. Molten salt walls surround the reaction chamber, absorbing heat and protecting the first solid wall from damage. In June, Xcimer turned on Phoenix, a prototype system that it says is the most powerful privately owned laser in the world.

Founded in July 2022, Xcimer has raised $100 million from investors, including Hedosophia, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Emerson Collective, Gigascale Capital, and Lowercarbon Capital.

This story was originally published in September 2024 and will be continually updated.