内容来源：https://www.geekwire.com/2026/soviet-secrets-and-star-wars-prototypes-avalanche-raises-29m-for-its-desktop-sized-power-quest/

内容总结：

【西雅图初创企业获注资，核聚变赛道再添新玩家】总部位于西雅图的核聚变能源初创公司“雪崩能源”（Avalanche Energy）近日宣布完成2900万美元（约合人民币2.1亿元）新一轮融资，用于推进其紧凑型核聚变技术研发及商业化测试设施建设。本轮融资由RA Capital Management领投，老股东跟投，使公司累计融资额达1.05亿美元。

与多数同行聚焦电网级大型聚变装置不同，雪崩能源独辟蹊径，专注开发桌面尺寸的小型聚变装置，目标市场定位于航天、国防等对设备便携性与功率密度要求极高的特殊领域。公司联合创始人罗宾·兰特里与布莱恩·赖尔登均出身于杰夫·贝索斯旗下的蓝色起源公司，其工程实践导向的研发思路促使团队从非常规渠道汲取灵感——例如借鉴上世纪80年代苏联“和平号”空间站的相关研究，以解决等离子体控制难题。

目前，公司正将本轮资金重点投入位于华盛顿州里奇兰的“聚变工场”（FusionWERX）测试设施建设。该设施为公私合作项目，获州政府1000万美元配套资金支持，计划于2025年启用，旨在为产业链企业、政府实验室及高校提供共享研发资源。资金还将用于采购超导磁体等关键设备，以支持新一代紧凑型聚变装置研发。

技术层面，该公司近期取得系列突破：成功实现稳定洁净等离子体约束、在紧凑型磁静电聚变装置中创下30万伏特运行电压纪录，并同步推进命名为“琴·厄索”与“兰多·卡瑞辛”（源自《星球大战》角色）的两款原型机测试。团队下一步目标是实现“能量增益因子Q＞1”，即产出能量超过输入能量。

随着全球AI产业扩张催生巨量能源需求，核聚变领域近年吸引资本密集涌入。尽管商业化可控核聚变尚未实现，但行业竞争已进入“硬科技”实测阶段。正如兰特里所言：“仅凭图纸和设想的阶段正在终结，未来几年决胜关键在于谁能真正造出机器、突破等离子体纪录并实现商业化。我们正全力参与这场竞赛。”

中文翻译：

西雅图初创公司雪崩能源周二宣布获得2900万美元融资，以推动其核聚变能源研发，并助力启动商业规模的核聚变技术测试设施。本轮私募融资由RA资本管理公司领投，使该公司通过投资者和政府补助获得的总融资额达到1.05亿美元。

新资金将主要用于建设"聚变工场"——这是位于华盛顿州里奇兰市的一个公私合营测试设施，旨在为企业、政府实验室和大学提供共享研发资源，以完善行业供应链并生产放射性材料。该设施预计明年投入运营，并获得华盛顿州1000万美元配套资金支持。

近期投资还将用于购置超导磁体等设备，这些是雪崩能源下一代紧凑型核聚变装置的关键组件。随着耗能巨大的数据中心在全国扩张以满足蓬勃发展的AI需求，核聚变领域近年来吸引了巨额投资。雪崩能源瞄准的应用场景略有不同，但仍受益于市场对清洁能源的迫切需求。

本轮融资汇集了所有现有投资方：和谐创投、创始人基金、低碳资本和丰田风投。新加入的投资方包括8090工业、叠加资本等机构。

聚变竞赛中的独特路径

在太平洋西北地区的核聚变生态系统中，雪崩能源始终独树一帜。当本地竞争对手赫利安能源、扎普能源和通用聚变致力于开发大型电网供电装置时，雪崩能源却选择了小型化路线。

该公司专注于开发台式机尺寸的装置，尤其适用于太空或国防领域——这些场景中便携性和功率密度比单纯的电网级输出更为关键。雪崩能源创始人罗宾·朗特里和布莱恩·赖尔登的创业路径同样非比寻常：他们并非来自学术界的物理实验室，而是出自杰夫·贝索斯的蓝色起源公司，曾从事火箭推进器研发工作。

他们以迭代为核心、注重实践的方法使其获得了意想不到的灵感来源——最近来自俄罗斯"和平号"空间站数十年前的研究成果，帮助他们重新调整了某些异常等离子体的状态。"这有点像考古工作，挖掘80年代尚未完全数字化的苏联文献，"公司CEO朗特里表示。他指出，这些被忽视的俄罗斯发现可以成功应用于雪崩的聚变装置："我们最终借鉴了他们的一些创意。"

聚变研发进展

自2018年成立以来，团队已发展到50名成员，并取得多项进展：

• 等离子体控制：攻克了创建稳定纯净等离子体的两大关键技术挑战——这种除固态、液态、气态外的第四种物质形态是实现核聚变能量的关键
• 高压稳定性：团队使聚变装置在30万伏电压下运行，创下紧凑型磁电聚变技术的新纪录
• 原型机开发：目前正在研发两款紧凑型聚变原型机：琴恩（以《星球大战》主角琴·厄索命名）和稍大的兰多（以兰多·卡瑞辛命名）

团队希望下一代聚变装置能达到"Q值大于1"的突破性目标——即等离子体产生的能量超过输入能量。尽管雪崩能源正开辟独特发展道路，它仍是全球核聚变竞赛的参与者之一。物理学家数十年来一直致力于开发商业可行的核聚变技术，虽尚未有成功先例，但多家公司宣称已接近突破。

"仅靠图纸设计和计划就能推进的时代正在终结。未来几年真正的竞争在于谁能建造出这些装置，真正展示突破性的等离子体成果并将其商业化，"朗特里表示，"我们将在这场竞赛中全力以赴。"

英文来源：

Seattle startup Avalanche Energy on Tuesday announced $29 million in funding to support its push toward fusion power and to help launch a commercial-scale testing facility for fusion technologies.
The private investment was led by RA Capital Management and brings the startup’s total funding to $105 million across investors and government grants.
The new capital is largely earmarked for FusionWERX, a test facility in Richland, Wash., that is a public-private partnership offering shared R&D resources to companies, government labs and universities to develop the sector’s supply chain and to produce radioactive materials. The site is expected to open next year and is supported by $10 million in matching funds provided by Washington state.
The recent investment will also help pay for equipment including superconducting magnets that will be needed for Avalanche’s next-generation compact fusion device.
The fusion sector has attracted massive investments in recent years as energy-hungry data centers expand nationally to meet burgeoning AI needs. Avalanche is targeting slightly different use cases, but still benefiting from the insatiable appetite for clean power.
The round included all of the startup’s existing backers: Congruent Ventures, Founders Fund, Lowercarbon Capital and Toyota Ventures. New investors 8090 Industries, Overlay Capital and others also joined.
An outlier in the fusion race
Avalanche remains an outlier in the Pacific Northwest’s fusion ecosystem. While local rivals Helion Energy, Zap Energy and General Fusion are aiming for large devices to feed electrons to the electrical grid, Avalanche is going small.
The company has its sights on desktop-sized machines well-suited for space or defense applications — environments where portability and power density are more critical than sheer grid-scale output.
Avalanche founders Robin Langtry and Brian Riordan have likewise taken a less conventional path to founding the company, coming not from physics labs in academia but from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin where they worked on rocket propulsion.
Their iterative, builder-focused approach has led them to unlikely sources of inspiration — most recently, decades-old research from Russia’s Mir space program that helped them reorient some misbehaving plasma.
“There’s a little bit of archeology going on, digging up old Soviet papers from the ’80s that are not necessarily well digitized,” said Langtry, the company’s CEO. But the overlooked discoveries by the Russians can be successfully applied to Avalanche’s fusion devices, he said. “We ended up borrowing some of their ideas.”
Progress in pursuit of fusion
Since launching in 2018, the team has grown to 50 employees and notched recent advances:

• Taming plasma: Avalanche overcame two critical technical challenges around creating stable, clean plasma — which is a fourth state of matter in addition to solid, liquid and gas that’s key to generating fusion energy.
• High-voltage stability: The team operated its fusion device at 300,000 volts, a new record for compact, magneto-electrostatic fusion technology.
• The prototypes: The startup is currently working with two compact fusion prototypes: Jyn and the slightly larger Lando, named after Star Wars’ protagonists Jyn Erso and Lando Calrissian.
  The team hopes its next fusion machine will hit the sought-after target of “Q greater than one” — which is when more energy is produced by the plasma than was put into it.
  Though Avalanche is charting its own course, it’s part of a global race to harness the energy created when small atoms are forced to collide and fuse — mimicking the reactions that power the sun. Physicists have spent decades trying to develop commercially viable fusion. None so far have succeeded, but some companies claim they’re getting close.
  “The time where you could kind of get by with paper designs and plans is sort of ending. It’s really all about who can build these machines in the next couple years and really demonstrate record-breaking plasmas and then commercialize that,” Langtry said, adding, “we’re going to be right there with them.”