News

Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised more than $1.8 billion in the largest private investment for nuclear fusion yet as startups race to be the first to generate carbon-free energy like the sun.

Companies

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems

The demand for artificial intelligence that can help solve real-world problems is only continuing to grow, and consequently, investors are receiving more pitches from startups claiming to be the next big thing.

People

• Reed Sturtevant

Super-thin membrane from startup Osmoses aims to cut pollution and improve CO2 capture economics.

Companies

• Osmoses

Hedron raised $17.8 million and intends to roll out the first orbital plane of what it intends to be “the world’s first hybrid optical/RF data relay network."

Biobot Analytics, a pandemic-era leader on testing to detect levels of the coronavirus in wastewater, has raised $20 million in funding.

Companies

• Biobot Analytics

Via Separations raises $38M to reduce the amount of energy required in a manufacturing process, resulting in lower carbon creation, lower energy usage and lower costs.

Companies

• Via Separations

Three companies are attracting private and public funding for their potentially game-changing efforts to extract lithium from brine in California.

Companies

• Lilac Solutions

Katie Rae, CEO & Managing Partner, The Engine was featured on list of women shaping Venture Capital. Meet the leaders at venture firms, and others who could well become the next generation of industry leaders.

People

• Katie Rae

Amid an escalating crisis, the power source offers a dream—or a pipe dream—of limitless clean energy.

Companies

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Cellino presents at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021’s Startup Battlefield to detail how its system could eventually democratize access to cell therapies.

Companies

• Cellino

Cellino Biotech CEO Nabiha Saklayen explains how we could harness advances in biology, machine learning and lasers to create personalized stem cell banks -- and develop medicine uniquely designed for each of our bodies.

Companies

• Cellino

A new on-demand microtransit service launched in the Kent area today. Known as Pingo, King County Metro is piloting the service throughout much of the Kent Valley, East Hill, and Panther Lake areas.

Companies

• The Routing Company

Boston Metal's green steel solution will help car companies reduce their carbon footprint by developing a more environmentally friendly manufacturing process.

Companies

• Boston Metal

A major breakthrough was achieved in a key technology for commercial fusion power, and very likely sets up the first ever net-energy-out fusion plant being commissioned four years from today.

Companies

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Form Energy recently brought in $240 million to advance their pivotal technology navigating the power grid.

Companies

• Form Energy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) completed the successful test of a key technology — a very powerful magnet — at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center in Cambridge, Mass.

Companies

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Infection mimicry enhances humoral and cellular immune responses to flu vaccine. Silk microneedle patches achieve influenza vaccine release for 2 weeks in mice.

Companies

• Vaxess Technologies

While most of the quantum computing world is focused on achieving fault tolerant computing – some day – with intermediate applications for NISQ (near intermediate scale quantum) systems emerging along the way, Zapata Computing is taking a different approach.

Companies

• Zapata AI [NASDAQ: ZPTA]

CFS shares that its nearing a technological milestone that could take the world a step closer to fusion energy, which has eluded scientists for decades.

Companies

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems

VC darling Form Energy’s unproven path to market could become a model.

Companies

• Form Energy

Mariana Matus & Newsha Ghaeli of Biobot Analytics were recognized as two of the 50 emerging female tech leaders to watch in 2021.

Companies

• Biobot Analytics

Form Energy has built an inexpensive battery that can discharge power for days using one of the most common elements on Earth: iron.

Companies

• Form Energy

Hedron (formerly Analytical Space) won a $26.4 million contract to develop and launch six cubesats and two hosted payloads to begin establishing the Fast Pixel Network for optical communications.

Venture capitalists are betting that technology from startup Cellino Biotech Inc. will help enable a host of diseases to be cured through stem-cell therapy.

Companies

• Cellino

Cellino Biotech has concluded a $16 million seed financing round that will further advance technology that ultimately seeks to generate autologous induced pluripotent stem cells at scale.

Companies

• Cellino

Boston Metal, which previously raised $20 million back in 2019, uses a process called molten oxide electrolysis (“MOE”) to make steel alloys — and eventually emissions-free steel.

Companies

• Boston Metal

In a society where speed is of the essence, startups are tackling large, urgent problems that quick fixes can’t solve.

The Engine has completed a $230-million funding round, including Harvard as an important new partner in the venture, and bringing its total capital commitments to $435 million.

The Engine has raised $230 million toward the firm’s second fund, which on top of the firm’s first fund brings it to a total of $435 million under management.

During a year when venture capital firms are chasing hyped software and artificial intelligence startups more than ever, Harvard University is joining MIT to invest in less-sexy — and research heavy — companies aiming to fix more existential problems.