Breakthrough Energy Backs 21 Startups in Sixth Fellows Cohort

Breakthrough Energy has named 21 startups to the sixth cohort of its Fellows program, a group that ranges from proton-boron fusion and semiconductor materials to ammonia-based hydrogen transport and ocean-floor mineral harvesting robotics, TechCrunch reported. The program, part of Bill Gates’ climate investment operation, backs early-stage companies working on technologies that would take far longer to mature without patient capital.

The cohort is the first announced since Ashley Grosh, who previously led the Fellows program, left to become a partner at WovenEarth Ventures. Senior director Benjamin Gaddy is serving as acting director while Breakthrough Energy decides what comes next, according to managing partner Eric Toone.

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Key facts

• Twenty-one startups make up the sixth Breakthrough Energy Fellows cohort, a program that has run for several years.
• The cohort spans agriculture, nuclear fusion, robotics, critical minerals and data center power efficiency, according to TechCrunch.
• Borealis Fusion is pursuing proton-boron fuel, which is widely available but hard to heat enough to ignite.
• Bedrock Semiconductor, K1 Semiconductor and Vari Flux are working on semiconductor and data center efficiency, with K1 targeting gallium nitride and silicon carbide processing.
• Toone is serving as managing partner, with Benjamin Gaddy acting as interim program director.

Fusion, chips and the physics of a long shot

Two fusion companies are in the group. Borealis Fusion is chasing proton-boron fuel, a path whose fuel is abundant but whose ignition demands temperatures that have historically kept it out of reach. Gaddy told TechCrunch that if the company succeeds, energy could become considerably cheaper. StarWarden, the second fusion name, is working on heat management for future reactors, a problem that sits alongside the reaction itself rather than in front of it.

On the semiconductor side, K1 is developing a more efficient process for key materials including gallium nitride and silicon carbide. Gaddy said that could cut the cost of power electronics by roughly half or more. The efficiency angle links the chip companies to the cohort’s data center interests, where Breakthrough Energy’s thesis is that today’s demand boom is a signal rather than the main event.

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Hydrogen’s missing pipes and a warmer climate

Toone described hydrogen as the Swiss army knife of energy, useful for almost anything if it is cheap enough, but he noted that the installed infrastructure to move it in the United States is close to zero. AmyHyTech and Ammovolt Energy are working on ammonia as a carrier to close that gap.

A share of this year’s group is working on adaptation rather than decarbonization. Toone said people had hoped to cut emissions faster than proved possible, and that the slower, harder path leads directly to helping societies cope with a warmer climate.

Why it matters

The cohort is a snapshot of where patient climate capital thinks the hard problems sit: not in incremental energy savings but in materials, fuels and reactors that need years to prove out. For the startups, selection brings early funding and access at a stage where conventional venture investors often stay away. For the wider energy sector, the list signals that data center power demand is being treated as an early warning of a much larger electricity build-out rather than as the peak itself.

What to watch

Breakthrough Energy has not yet named a permanent successor to Grosh, leaving Gaddy in the acting director role while the organization works out its next step. The first public progress markers will be technical ones: whether the fusion, semiconductor materials and ammonia transport companies can move from lab results toward pilots.

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Source: TechCrunch