The very first commercial fusion power plant
Aug 7, 2025
Kaley Ubellacker
Happy Wednesday
Happy Wednesday! If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets, your one-stop pre-seed shop. We deliver updates from Necessary Ventures and helpful tidbits on our little corner of the world. Every edition is also on our blog.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Y Combinator's Fall Request for Startups just dropped, and they’re making a hard pivot to AI-native everything.
Helion Energy just broke ground on what it claims will be the world’s first commercial fusion power plant, a 50 MW facility called Orion, set to launch in 2028 in Washington.
July 2025 saw global venture funding hold steady at $29.7 billion, down from June but flat year-over-year, with AI continuing to dominate the funding landscape.
For the less rushed reader …
Every AI thing, everywhere, all at once
AI is still the most popular kid at school. Y Combinator's Fall Request for Startups just dropped, and they’re making a hard pivot to AI-native everything. They’re looking to fund: (1) a trade school that uses AI tutors to train electricians, HVAC techs, and other skilled labor for the AI infrastructure boom; (2) a startup that builds lifelike AI-generated video for practical use cases like resurrecting canceled TV shows, creating digital shopping models, or letting people FaceTime with their dead relatives; (3) a consulting firm for the federal government, powered entirely by LLMs, built to replace McKinsey and Deloitte on $100B+ in contracts; (4) AI-native Salesforce or ServiceNow competitors with AI baked into every workflow from day one; (5) tooling to help developers spin up, orchestrate, and manage fleets of AI agents that can actually work together without crashing and burning; and (6) a 10-person company that uses AI to print $100B in revenue. I’m surprised Y Combinator isn’t just building a battalion of AI agents for its next cohort and letting them build all these startups
Fissioning the competition
Helion has been head down on R&D for 12 years, and now it’s time to raise the temperature on the clean energy race. Helion Energy just broke ground on what it claims will be the world’s first commercial fusion power plant, a 50 MW facility called Orion, set to launch in 2028 in Washington. The goal is to generate clean, near-limitless energy by fusing atomic nuclei, something no one’s done at scale before: a goal growing more important everyday with the ever-increasing energy demands from AI. If successful, it would power Microsoft data centers under a landmark agreement signed in 2023. Backed by over $1B from investors like Sam Altman, SoftBank, and Lightspeed, Helion is one of the frontrunners in a fusion race that drew $2.6B in global funding last year. Now, we’re cooking with plasma.
Not a Figma-nt of your imagination
Figma designed its perfect IPO, and July is a month for the books. July 2025 saw global venture funding hold steady at $29.7 billion, down from June but flat year-over-year, with AI continuing to dominate the funding landscape. In total, AI pulled in $11 billion and drove much of the $2.6 billion growth in the first seven months of the year. The standout moment of July was Figma’s blockbuster IPO, which tripled its opening price on day one, signaling a potential thaw in public markets for mature, revenue-generating tech startups waiting to exit. Large funding rounds led by corporate and private equity investors made up 38% of July’s venture dollars, with the U.S. capturing 58% of global investment. While AI leads the charge, healthcare and fintech also showed strong funding gains. Despite $1 trillion locked in over 1,600 unicorns, hopefully Figma sketched the blueprint for more high-growth startups to cash out soon.
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$17.4M
14
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
SAAS-Y AI HAS AN EDGE
Seed-stage AI SaaS startups are commanding a premium, with valuations 41% higher on average than their non-AI peers, and they’re pulling in more capital too. In 2024, AI SaaS companies raised 26% more cash, reflecting investor appetite for automation at the earliest stages.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Highlights from this week’s pre-seed raises:
healthtech
Outfox Health - Sly as a healthbot.
Outfox Health raised $1.5 million led by Two Ravens. Outfox Health is creating an AI copilot that helps users navigate health benefits, increasing member engagement and promoting cost savings.
AI
Tzafon - Mission automatable.
Tzafon raised $9.7 million led by HV Capital. Tzafon is building action-oriented AI agents that automate complex digital tasks to boost operational efficiency for both enterprises and consumers.
AI
Humancore - The manager's cheat code.
Humancore raised $4 million led by Old Willow Partners. Humancore is building a Multiplayer AI Advisor that delivers real-time, personalized leadership guidance tailored to both managers and their teams.
JOBORTUNITIES
| Senior Embedded Systems Engineer | - Copper:
Rethinking the induction stove and making kitchen electrification more accessible than ever. Picture a fossil-free future, without sacrificing aesthetics.
| Production Engineer | - Infinite Machine:
Envisioning the future of transportation beyond cars and into the realm of personal electric vehicles. Its first product, P1, is the ultimate tool for city navigation.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
