A Seattle startup betting that fusion reactors can be small enough to hold in your hands -- and powerful enough to change defense, space, and remote power.
Most fusion ventures race to build bigger machines. Avalanche Energy is sprinting in the opposite direction. Founded in 2018 in Seattle by Robin Langtry (CEO) and Brian Riordan (COO), the company is developing the Orbitron -- a compact electrostatic fusion device whose plasma core is small enough to cradle in two hands. The idea, which Langtry invented in 2020, traps high-energy ions in electrostatic orbits around a central cathode while a weak crossed-field (E×B) magnetic geometry confines electrons. If the physics holds at scale, these micro-reactors could be stacked like batteries to serve loads from kilowatts to megawatts.1
The company closed a $40 million Series A in 2023 after demonstrating a 200 kV electrostatic fusion milestone. In February 2026, Avalanche secured an additional $29 million led by RA Capital Management. Government interest has followed: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a $5.2 million contract under its Rads to Watts program in April 2026 to develop radioisotope power technology, and AFWERX contributed $1.25 million for advanced materials research. Washington State added a $10 million grant to help build the company's FusionWERX neutron-production test facility.3
Avalanche frames the Orbitron as a modular energy source for environments where conventional power is impractical. Defense and intelligence agencies are the early paying customers -- the company's contracts with DARPA and the Air Force confirm that interest. Longer-term targets include space propulsion, autonomous underwater vehicles, forward-deployed military bases, and data centers seeking carbon-free baseload in locations too remote for grid connection.4
The Orbitron's electrostatic confinement approach sits outside the magnetic and inertial mainstream, which means fewer independent benchmarks exist. The company has demonstrated impressive voltages but has not yet published peer-reviewed net-energy or sustained-burn data. Whether the device can transition from a neutron source to a net-power generator remains the central scientific question. Avalanche's near-term business case may rest on the neutron and isotope applications rather than electricity -- an honest framing the company itself appears to embrace with its FusionWERX facility.5