Endurance Energy raises $54M to harness a massive untapped energy source

An algorithm decides what we see, another filters what we read, and still others enter into the processes that govern work, information, and collective choices. In the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. the first signed by Pope Leo XIV and published on May 25, artificial intelligence is not viewed as just another technology; it is part of the invisible infrastructure of our contemporary daily lives.But the text is not conceived as an exclusively technological reflection. Pope Leo XIV places the issue of AI within the tradition of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and directly invokes—while updating it—the Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII (published on May 15, 1891) in the year of its 135th anniversary. That encyclical addressed the question of labor at the height of the industrial revolution in the late 19th century.If the “res novae” of that time were factories, labor, and industrial capitalism, today the new issues revolve around digital platforms, algorithms, data, and automation systems that are reshaping power, the economy, and social relations. For this reason, the encyclical does not present itself as a technical text about innovation, but rather as an attempt to interpret the digital transformation in light of human dignity and the common good. Technology, the Pope writes, is not evil in itself; on the contrary, it belongs to human history and creativity. But the current situation is different in both scale and depth: “Never has humanity had so much power over itself,” the text observes, describing technologies that now shape decisionmaking processes, the collective imagination, and social life in an increasingly pervasive way.It is from this point that Robert Francis Prevost chose to begin: from the growing concentration of power exercised through systems that are increasingly opaque yet increasingly decisive, and from the question that runs throughout the encyclical: What remains of human dignity, the protection of truth, work, social justice, and peace when decisions are transferred into algorithmic logic?Disarming TechnologyIn the encyclical there is an expression that becomes the key to interpreting the entire scenario: “disarming technology.” The meaning is far removed from any attempt to slow the development of artificial intelligence or to deny its potentially transformative impact for good. For Robert Francis Prevost, disarming AI means preventing it from becoming a form of power capable of dominating human existence.For Leo XIV, the point is not the technology itself, then, but its organization and application. AI, the pope writes, is part of a global race today to the “highest-performing algorithm” and the “largest data center,” where competitive advantage also becomes geopolitical. In this context, a few players concentrate digital infrastructure, data, and computing capacity, which affects information, economics, and even democracy.Disarming means breaking this equation between technical power and the right to govern. “As happens with every major technological turning point, AI tends above all to increase the power of those who already possess economic resources and access to data,” the pontiff explains.In explicit terms, the encyclical states that it is not enough merely to regulate technology: It must be taken away from monopolies, made transparent and open to challenge—that is, made “habitable” by a plurality of actors. Above all, AI must be prevented from becoming an instrument of economic, political, or military domination by a select few. This is not a moral metaphor: It is a call to prevent the logic of competition from transforming a shared infrastructure into a system of control.Truth Within the Systems That Select RealityIf technology concentrates power, one of the first concrete effects concerns the way in which collective truth is formed. The encyclical addresses the issue of disinformation, but in a decidedly deeper way because perceived reality, or rather experience, is increasingly filte

The deadline to apply or nominate for Startup Battlefield 200 is Friday, May 27. This program is your shot at VC access, global visibility, TechCrunch coverage, and $100,000 in equity-free funding. If you’re building a breakout startup — or know a founder who is — now is the time to move. Apply today for the opportunity to take the TechCrunch Disrupt Stage alongside 200 of the world’s most promising early-stage startups. Image Credits:TechCrunch Final countdown for early-stage founders Pre-Series A founders, this is your last call: the strongest startups are already entering the arena, and the application window is closing fast. If your startup has already been nominated, don’t wait to finish your application. The final week always moves quickly, and last-minute submissions risk getting buried as applications surge ahead of Friday’s deadline. Know a startup that deserves the spotlight? Nominate them now so they still have time to apply before May 27. The companies that define categories rarely start polished Some of the most consequential companies in tech history didn’t launch with splashy fundraising announcements. They started with a pitch. Dropbox demoed to a room full of skeptics. Cloudflare took the stage before most people understood what edge networking meant. Discord was still a scrappy gaming startup called Hammer & Chisel. Image Credits:TechCrunch They all passed through the same crucible: Startup Battlefield 200. That’s not a coincidence — it’s a pattern. And it starts with an application. Startup Battlefield 200 has never been a competition for the most polished companies. It’s a competition for the most promising ones. Pre-launch is fine. No revenue is fine. What matters is whether what you’re building genuinely changes something — not incrementally, but meaningfully. If you or a founder you know is building something impactful, then the application itself becomes the first pitch. Apply before May 27. More than a pitch competition Startup Battlefield 200 is where breakout companies get discovered. Selected startups will showcase live on the Disrupt Stage in front of 10,000+ attendees, leading VCs, global media, and the broader TechCrunch audience. This is your opportunity to gain investor exposure, receive direct VC feedback, and prove your company belongs among the next generation of category-defining startups. Every one of the 200 selected companies receives: A fully funded three-day exhibition booth at Disrupt Free passes for the team Dedicated pitch training Founder masterclasses with world-class VCs and operators A featured startup profile in the event app Press list access and lead-generation opportunities Opportunities for TechCrunch editorial coverage, podcasts, and speaking appearances as the company grows Image Credits:Slava Blazer Photography And every selected company pitches, whether on the Disrupt Stage or the Pitch Showcase Stage. Both put founders in front of the investors, media, and partners who attend Disrupt specifically to find what’s next. You don’t need to make the top 20 for this experience to change your trajectory. Get started by nominating and applying here. The Startup Battlefield 200 track record speaks for itself More than 1,700 companies have competed in Startup Battlefield 200. Together, they’ve raised over $32 billion and generated more than 250 exits, including acquisitions by Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Uber, and Amazon. The network runs so deep that alumni have even acquired each other: Dropbox acquired fellow Battlefield 200 alum DocSend in 2021. This is also the same launchpad that helped accelerate companies like Fitbit, Trello, and Mint. Behind every one of those outcomes was a founder willing to make a bet on themselves publicly, in front of people who were paying attention. Apply and learn more here. Who should apply? We’re looking for ambitious early-stage startups building innovative, potentially category-defining products. Applicat

When you think of Memorial Day sales, you probably think of mattresses and other home goods. And while those items are definitely discounted, now is also a good time to purchase tech. Personally, I'm not buying anything right now unless it's discounted—and fortunately many of our top picks are. Whether you're shopping for a power bank, a new pair of headphones, or some other gadget, I've rounded up the best Memorial Day deals for your perusal. We'll update this article again on Monday.Check out our buying guides for more recommendations, including the best headphones, the best laptops, and the best cheap phones. You might also want to check out our additional Memorial Day deals coverage.Updated May 24: We've checked prices, removed expired deals, added 5 new deals, and ensured accuracy throughout.WIRED Featured Deals:Top-notch noise-canceling headphones: Sony WH-1000XM5 for $248 ($122 off)A power bank for everything: Sharge Shargeek Power Bank for $120 ($50 off)Red light therapy for hair growth: HigherDose Red Light Hat for $359 ($90 off)—Use Code MDW2026The best budget botvac and mop: Eufy C28 Robot Vacuum and Mop for $500 ($300 off)A red-light helmet for hair growth: iRestore Elite for $1,799 ($900 off)Sony WH-1000XM5 for $248 ($152 off)Courtesy of SonySonyWH-1000XM5The Sony WH-1000XM5 have a very frustrating name, but they're the predecessor to our favorite wireless headphones, and they're still an excellent pick if you don't want to shell out for the new WH-1000XM6. They go on sale frequently, but rarely drop this low in price, which comes within $5 of their all-time low. If you're in the market for over-ear headphones, they're hard to beat. They're comfortable, portable, lightweight, and stylish, and they'll make your music sound great no matter what you like to listen to.JBLFlip 7Our favorite Bluetooth speaker is stylish, portable, and packs surprisingly good sound for its size. Most colors are on sale this Memorial Day. Grab one in time for your next beach day or backyard cookout.TribitStormBox Micro 2I did not even know they made separate Bluetooth speakers for bikes, but this is the best one, according to former WIRED reviewer Parker Hall. At less than $50, I am probably going to buy this as an end-of-school gift for my teen son. —Kat MerckAppleMacBook Air (M5, 2026)We haven't seen our favorite laptop sell for less, though it has been on sale for this price for a few weeks. It's powerful, has a great battery life, and has a sleek whisper-quiet design.BeatsPowerbeats Pro 2These stunning earbuds fit securely, making them especially good for workouts. They play well with iOS and Android devices. They do go on sale for this price frequently, though.Sharge Shargeek Power Bank for $120 ($50 off)Photograph: Simon HillShargeShargeek 170 Power BankWIRED reviewer Simon Hill ranks this as the best-looking power bank due to its ’90s throwback clear design. It reminds me of a cyberpunk Toblerone bar, but Simon reports that it packs some legitimate power with a maximum output of 170 watts, a 24,000-mAh capacity, and an IP66 rating water-resistance rating. It supports Power Delivery 3.1, Quick Charge 4.0, and PPS and can fast-charge three devices simultaneously. —Kat MerckSperaxWalking PadOur favorite budget walking pad sells for this price frequently, but it's a solid price to pay for what you get. Especially since our previous shared walking pad deal expired!Wolfbox4000A Jump StarterThe best portable jump starter regularly jumps between $120 and $108, making now a better time to buy. It can charge your phone and has a built-in light, too.EpickaPulse Travel AdapterThis fantastic travel adapter is always affordable, but it doesn't sell for less than it is right now. It's ultracompact, has a good mix of ports, and will cover you in about 200 countries.SteelSeriesArctis Nova 3P WirelessI use our top gaming headset every day. It's comfortable and lightweight, the battery lasts for days, and I can always hear everything clearly. (My tea

One news headline this week had a whiff of déjà vu about it. Nuclear startup Deep Fission announced that it was going public, hoping to garner investor support to build subterranean reactors to power AI data centers. Wait, didn’t I already write that story? I could have sworn that I did. Oh right, I did. Last September, Deep Fission said that it had gone public via a reverse merger with Surfside Acquisition, a Delaware shell company, a transaction in which a private company acquires an existing publicly listed entity to gain a stock market listing — raising $30 million in a concurrent private placement at $3 a share. Now it’s seeking $157 million in a Nasdaq IPO at $24 to $26 a share. You can see my confusion. Turns out the previous public listing was public in name only. The reverse merger with Surfside was completed, making Deep Fission a reporting company with SEC obligations, but its stock never actually traded. The company had said it intended to list on the OTCQB, a marketplace for developing companies that don’t meet the listing requirements of major exchanges like the NYSE or Nasdaq. But searches for Deep Fission on OTCQB don’t return any results, and the company, in its S-1, denied that its stock had ever been publicly traded. In response to questions from TechCrunch, Deep Fission declined to comment, citing the quiet period before its IPO. Deep Fission’s new public offering on Nasdaq is following the more traditional IPO route, with an offering that would value the company at up to $1.66 billion. It’s a sizable figure for a company that one year ago was struggling to raise a $15 million funding round. Stranger still, the picture painted in the S-1 filed on May 20 is arguably bleaker than the one outlined in the December filing with the SEC. Its timeline for turning on its first reactor has slipped. Further, back in December, it had hoped to achieve criticality — the point at which a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining — by July 2026. Now, it won’t provide an estimate. Deep Fission does point out that it is drilling a test well. It has also lost a lot of money. One thing that hasn’t changed: The new S-1 statement contains the same “going concern” warning present in December. If Deep Fission doesn’t complete the IPO, it could run out of money in the next 12 months. In fact, the startup’s financial position has worsened in recent months. As of March, its deficit had grown to $88.1 million from $56.2 million. In the last month and a half, the company’s cash and cash equivalents declined by $6.4 million, or about 7%. On the technical front, Deep Fission says it is now prioritizing drilling, perhaps a tacit admission that making holes in the ground isn’t as easy as it sounds. The company says it started drilling the first of three test wells in March. The well will be used to collect data “up to 6,000 feet deep.” At eight inches in diameter, it’s quite a bit smaller than will be needed at commercial scale. The challenges in moving from a test well to commercial scale are likely to be significant. Deep Fission says it will need boreholes 30 to 50 inches in diameter and a mile deep, though it hasn’t settled on a specific dimension yet. Even at the low end, its boreholes will be larger than what’s typically used in the oil and gas industry. And until Deep Fission knows how large of a hole it can drill, it’ll have a hard time finalizing its reactor design. So what has changed since December that would spur a bigger offering at a nine-figure valuation? The company did receive an $80 million equity investment, including $20 million from data center developer Blue Owl, which also signed a non-binding MOU for future power plants. Still, that wasn’t enough to stave off the going concern warning. It’s possible that Deep Fission is sitting on some positive information that it omitted from the S-1, though that’s hard to believe given what’s riding on the IPO. It’s more likely that the company and its backers a

Has Elon Musk given up on Tesla’s Master Plans, on the electrified economy, on solar power as we know it? From the SpaceX IPO filing released yesterday, it sure seems like it. A recap for those not enmeshed in the Musk-verse: Tesla has released four Master Plans over the years, and while details have varied, the through line has been electrification of the economy. Musk put it best in his first edition: “the overarching purpose of Tesla motors…is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy.” But recently, one of Musk’s companies, xAI, has embraced the mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy, using dozens of unregulated natural gas turbines to power its data centers with plans to buy $2.8 billion more, effectively cementing the fossil fuel’s role in the company’s AI operations. It’s a curious turn for a businessman who built his empire on clean energy — and who has no qualms directing his companies to buy from one another. SpaceX spent $131 million on 1,279 Cybertrucks, and xAI has spent $697 million in the last two years on Tesla Megapacks, it’s grid-scale battery storage systems that the company will use to manage peak loads. But so far, xAI hasn’t bought a materially significant number of solar panels from Tesla. Solar power isn’t missing in the SpaceX filing, it’s just all concentrated on space, which the company touts as the future of data center power. Terrestrial solar garners a few mentions — not as a power source for xAI data centers but instead to show how much better SpaceX thinks space-based solar will be. It’s no secret that Musk and other Silicon Valley executives have become obsessed with space-based solar power. SpaceX says that space-based solar arrays can generate “more than five-times the energy” of terrestrial ones thanks to 24/7 illumination. As AI data centers have run into opposition here on Earth, CEOs like Musk have started mulling big server racks in space powered by that 24/7 sunshine. Hammer, meet nail. Even if SpaceX is able to bring down the cost of boosting a data center into orbit, the economics are challenging at best. Power prices for Starlink satellites are multiples higher than what a terrestrial data center typically spends, and protecting chips from the rigors of space won’t be easy or cheap. It’s also not clear whether AI training can be distributed across multiple satellites, leaving a significant chunk of AI work earthbound. It’s not just one problem that SpaceX needs to solve, but many. It’s likely that Musk considers xAI’s current data centers as stopgaps, that once SpaceX is able to loft gigawatts worth of servers into orbit — probably just a few years away, in his mind — he’ll scrap what’s here on the ground, natural gas turbines included and not have to think about NIMBYs anymore. The risk, of course, is that he’s wrong. It’s not just NIMBYs that Musk is worried about, though. He’s clearly concerned that computing demands from AI will quickly outstrip what we can provide here on Earth. Sprinkled throughout the SEC filing are references to “terawatt-scale annual AI compute growth,” which will require power to match. That’s a stunning figure when you consider that all the world’s data centers use around 40 gigawatts today. This is Musk’s “first principles” thinking in action. At some point, he assumed the world will need an additional terawatt worth of compute every year, and he worked back from there. “We believe that third-party estimates on data center demand are constrained by the practical supply limitations that exist in a terrestrial context and the power shortage may be far greater than what research estimates suggest,” the company argues. Possible? Sure, I suppose. But consider that humanity today uses about 35,000 terawatt-hours of energy annually, or about 4 terawatts on a continuous basis. Energy demand has risen lately, and for AI, it probably is in an phase of exponential growth, which could either continue or l

Solar will become the largest source of power in the next decade, surpassing coal, oil and natural gas, according to a new report from BloombergNEF. The tectonic shift will occur alongside a historic rise in the use of energy driven by AI and the electrification of entire industries. “Solar is winning the race,” Matthias Kimmel, head of energy economics at BloombergNEF, told TechCrunch. BloombergNEF expects the shift to happen on economic grounds alone — solar is simply too cheap to ignore. Pakistan, for example, has added 25 gigawatts of solar power in the last two years after natural gas prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The transition could be even swifter if countries take more aggressive measures to curb their carbon emissions. The power handoff comes as investors are viewing energy as one of the biggest opportunities for growth in recent decades. Data centers have been at the center of the obsession, and BloombergNEF’s data reinforces the scale of the opportunity. The energy consultancy expects data centers to drive an additional 1 terawatt of utility-scale solar, 400 gigawatts of solar, 370 gigawatts of natural gas, and 110 gigawatts of coal. But because of gas and coal’s ability to operate 24/7, BloombergNEF expects those fossil fuels to provide 51% of incremental generation for data centers by 2050. Put simply, tech companies and data center developers will have an outsized influence over which energy sources remain viable by mid-century. Those forecasts aren’t ironclad, though. Other technologies have been vying for a piece of the data center market, including long-duration energy storage, geothermal, and nuclear. Big batteries received a boost from Google, which has included $1 billion worth of 100-hour batteries from Form Energy in a recent data center project. And both geothermal and nuclear power show promise following the blockbuster IPOs of both Fervo Energy and X-energy this month. Competition from photovoltaics will be stiff, though. Solar panels have spread dramatically in recent years, spurred by declining costs that show no sign of stopping. By 2035, prices are expected to drop another 30%, outcompeting coal and natural gas. By 2050, solar panels are expected to generate more than twice as much electricity as natural gas. Solar’s falling costs can be attributed to two causes: One is China’s industrial policy, which has favored the technology, subsidizing manufacturers and flooding the market. The other is mass manufacturing, which has helped wring costs out of solar at a remarkable pace. Generally, “costs fall with every doubling of of installed capacity,” Kimmel said. “In the case of solar, it has gone even faster than that.” Solar’s abundance is starting to push grid-scale batteries down the same path. In Spain and Italy, standalone solar farms are no longer profitable because a surplus of solar power has driven down daytime electricity prices, Kimmel said. In response, developers have started building so-called hybrid renewable power plants, which pair solar panels with batteries to take advantage of higher evening prices. The current state of the battery market is akin to where solar was in 2020, BloombergNEF said. Last year, 112 gigawatts of grid-scale batteries were installed worldwide. By 2035, the company expects that figure to nearly triple. Companies from Redwood Materials to Ford have launched energy storage businesses to capitalize on the trend. The missing piece in this report was the Iran War, which started when BloombergNEF was too far along in the process to make any major changes. The team did test the effects of two scenarios on various countries’ dependence on energy imports. Under the economic transition scenario, in which decarbonization is driven largely by dollars and cents rather than regulations, every country would reduce its reliance on foreign energy, including oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia. Under a net-zero scenario, which sees regulations driving

Pity the PJM Interconnection. For decades, the grid operator worked quietly and in the background, matching electricity demand with supply. Meanwhile, customers enjoyed some of the lowest electricity prices in the United States. No longer. Politicians, businesses, households, power companies think it needs an overhaul. Even PJM is in agreement. PJM released a white paper this week that said the region “has years, not decades” to make fundamental changes to the way it operates. “The current situation is not tenable,” PJM CEO David Mills wrote in a foreward to the report. Normally, this sort of wonky report would land on the desks of a few legislators and regulators. But PJM’s territory includes a large number of data centers, including the compute-dense region of Northern Virginia. What happens to PJM will send ripples throughout the tech world. The 70-page report is an exercise in navel gazing. But despite the deep introspection, not everyone is convinced the organization is up to the task of overhauling itself. One utility, American Electric Power, is considering pulling out of PJM altogether. “The current state of PJM’s performance and stakeholder approval process does not give me great confidence that these issues will be resolved anytime soon,” Bill Fehrman, AEP’s CEO, said in an earnings call Tuesday. “In fact, if something is not done now, I expect we could still be having these same conversations in 10 years. The PJM market worked very well when supply exceeded demand, we are now in a very different time.” Here’s what changed Cloud computing and AI have begun to strain PJM’s existing generating capacity. Against the backdrop of surging demand, PJM paused applications in 2022 for new generating sources to connect to its grid, citing a years-long backlog. Just as the need for electricity was beginning to grow for the first time in decades, the grid operator prevented new sources from even applying to get hooked up. Techcrunch event San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026 PJM isn’t entirely to blame for the lengthy backlog. Many interconnection requests are duplicates — developers will propose essentially the same project in different grid regions to see which gets approved first. PJM’s sclerotic approval process meant that of the more than 300 gigawatts worth of projects in the queue in 2022, only 103 gigawatts ended up signing agreements, and only 23 gigawatts have been connected so far. Most developers withdrew rather than wait it out. Demand in the region remains so large that, since PJM recently reopened the queue, power companies and project developers have filed more than 800 interconnection requests for 220 gigawatts worth of new power. PJM might have been able to pause new requests, but it did nothing to tamp down demand for new interconnections. Here’s what PJM is proposing In its white paper, PJM has proposed three options. One would require utilities and power generators to essentially make bigger, longer-term commitments. (PJM currently requires them to commit to supplying a certain amount of electricity for three years.) The second option would change reliability guarantees for customers — those who pay less might get their power cut first. The last choice would try to move PJM closer to a real-time market, where supply and demand dictate prices, without entirely eliminating stability from long-term contracts. It’s hard to see how PJM emerges looking good in any of these scenarios. First, the way PJM operates its market has somewhat locked it into a three-year mindset. That seemed to work when natural gas power plants were replacing coal-fired generators, but today solar and batteries can be installed at least two to three times faster. What’s more, the shortage of natural gas turbines means that power plants planned today won’t be able to install the equipment until the early 2030s. Plus, prices of turbines have skyrocketed on the back of demand for hyperscalers. Given those realities, it’s

Moment Energy CEO Edward Chiang believes demand for power in North America is infinite — and that his startup has the solution. The company, which has headquarters in Canada and the United States, takes a novel approach to repurposing electric vehicle batteries, Chiang told TechCrunch. The company’s approach is special, he said, because of its dual focus on safety and modularity. Investors apparently agree. On Tuesday, Moment Energy announced it has raised a $40 million Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to more than $100 million. The round was led by Canadian VC firm Evok Innovations, with additional funding from grocery retailer fund W23, joining existing investors like Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and In-Q-Tel, the CIA-funded VC firm. In Chiang’s view, the electric grid in North America is in a losing race to keep up with this demand for power, driven by an increasingly extreme climate, the rise of electric vehicles, and the data center boom. So far, he says mostly Chinese companies have filled this demand — to the tune of about 72% of the global market, according to BNEF — adding a national security wrinkle to the picture. Moment Energy is tackling this by taking battery packs from electric vehicles, ripping out the automakers’ battery management systems, and writing its own software to manage the packs. It then packages the battery modules into larger grid-scale storage solutions that can host a wide mix of battery chemistries, allowing customers to benefit from future advances in the technology while also reducing downtime if a particular module fails. Crucially, Chiang said, Moment Energy is doing this all with UL Certification, making it the first company to repurpose batteries with a stamp of approval from the safety organization. Chiang said other companies working on repurposing EV batteries for long-term storage often claim that they test their products against UL certification standards, but that they don’t actually obtain the certifications, which requires the use of certain components. Techcrunch event San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026 “What most other second life [battery] companies are now trying to say is, let’s just lobby to make second life UL certification easier, because it is impossible to get UL certification, as it stands,” he said. “But at Moment, we say that’s not true. We got it.” UL certification may sound boring, but Chiang said it can make a difference not only when it comes to safety, but also in how these energy storage products are insured. He claimed (without naming them) that other energy storage companies will leave an automaker’s battery management system in tact on the re-used batteries, and essentially trick the pack into thinking it’s still on the road to coax the right amount of discharge. This could make these storage solutions either uninsurable or too costly to insure, Chiang said. He pointed to Liberty Mutual’s venture arm participation in Moment Energy’s Series B as proof that his company’s solution is above board. “Maybe as engineers, or as consumers, we think that’s kind of interesting,” he said. “In reality, fire inspectors don’t think that’s interesting. Automakers don’t think that’s interesting. You can imagine if — I really hope this never happens — but if a battery catches fire, the fire inspector will say, ‘Oh, hey, there’s a Tesla battery management system in here, or there’s a Nissan battery management system in here,’ and the automaker will say: ‘I’ve never given permission for anybody to hack and bootleg my safety systems.’” Chiang’s confidence seems to come from a number of places. Despite being small — Chiang said Moment Energy has around 72 employees — the company has signed supply deals with Mercedes-Benz and Nissan. It secured a $20 million loan from the Department of Energy. And it’s building a gigawatt-scale factory in Austin, Texas. Moment also has a growing book of diverse customers, from utilities, to industrial companie

Nobody said building a fusion power plant would be easy. Physicists and engineers have been working for decades to crack the problem. But over the last year or so, fusion startup Zap Energy took a deeper look at its pathway to a working power plant and decided that it would be quicker to build a fission power plant first. Wait, what? “Fission and fusion are two sides of the same coin,” Zap’s new CEO Zabrina Johal told TechCrunch. “They have so many challenges that are congruent with each other.” Zap is among the better-funded fusion startups, having raised more than $300 million, so this partial pivot holds some shock value, no matter how many synergies exist between fission and fusion. It starts to make more sense against the backdrop of rising energy demand from AI data centers, which is expected to nearly triple by 2030. Tech companies want electricity today, and one of the challenges facing every fusion startup is that grid-ready power plants won’t be ready for several more years — likely a decade or more. “There is not enough power and energy in the world to build all the data centers that are needed,” Johal said. “It just meant we need to pull this in faster, we need to get something that’s relevant to the grid today.” Two ways to split an atom Fission is commercially viable in a way that fusion is not. Fusion is the practice of fusing two light atoms like hydrogen, which also releases energy. One experiment has been able to produce more energy than the fusion reaction needed to ignite, but it wasn’t anywhere close to what a power plant would need to generate. Fission splits heavy atoms like uranium to produce power, and we’ve been doing that since the 1950s. Techcrunch event San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026 Despite decades of experience, building fission reactors cost-effectively remains a significant challenge. Fission startups building small modular reactors (SMR) are counting on mass manufacturing to help bring costs down, though that theory has yet to be proven. Benefits from scaling production can take around a decade to materialize. Johal said that Zap expects to start generating revenue from the new fission business within a year. “Our business model is not dependent upon generating electrons,” she said. Revenue could come from federal programs from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, but it could also include “milestone payments” and reserved production capacity from companies that need massive amounts of electricity, she said. Milestone payments could be an intriguing model for Zap and other energy startups to follow. It’s similar in concept to how ASML extracted money from Intel, TSMC, and Samsung to develop extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV). The semiconductor manufacturers effectively paid a premium for ASML shares, underwriting R&D in the technology and reserving capacity once EUV machines entered production. But there’s a fundamental difference between what Zap is attempting and what ASML pulled off. When ASML ginned up its “Customer Co-Investment Program for Innovation,” it was clear the Dutch company was the only show in town — everyone else had given up on EUV. In the energy world, tech companies have a range of different technologies and suppliers to pick from. They’ll want to see something extra special in Zap’s fission proposal before they pony up. On that front, potential buyers can already start assessing Zap’s plans. The startup’s fission reactor will be based on the 4S, a molten salt-cooled design that was jointly developed by Toshiba and Japan’s power industry research institute. Ultimately, it was never built, but Johal said the design comes with “no intellectual property entanglement.” Johal expects there will be enough demand in the 2030s that Zap will find plenty of customers, despite being years behind other fission startups. “There will not be enough reactors in the near term,” she said. Follow the money For Zap’s fission gambit to pay off,