Fusion startup Blue Star Fusion hits 3B yuan valuation with post-2000 founder
What's the deal? Blue Star FusionDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → (also known as Weilan Star), a Chinese controllable-fusion startup founded by a post-2000s entrepreneur, has raised hundreds of millions of yuan in an angel round. The round values the company at more than 3 billion yuan post-money.
Who's backing it? Investors include Gaorong Capital, Boyu CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Weihe InvestmentDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Oasis CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Huilong Venture Capital, Minyin InternationalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and AI player Xiwang Technology. Also on the roster: Liang HongDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → of Siva Asset and Wang YipingDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → of Evolution Asset, whose funds each rank among the top 10 tens-of-billions-yuan private equity managers.
Who's the founder? Xu Runlai holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Oxford and studied stellarators during a PhD at Princeton University, which he suspended to return to China and start the company.
What does it do? Founded in August 2025, Blue Star Fusion pursues the stellarator route to magnetic confinement fusion — one of two mainstream approaches alongside tokamak. The stellarator uses external three-dimensional coils to confine plasma, which suits steady-state operation but makes magnetic field design and coil manufacturing highly complex.
Why now? The company has completed three financing rounds of over 100 million yuan each within its first year. Its team has grown from five physical-design staff to nearly 100 people drawn from Princeton, Oxford, and Tsinghua University.
What's the endgame? Blue Star Fusion has finished the physical design of its first-phase device and built an in-house AI platform, including a coil-optimisation tool called NextOpt. It recently ran a current-carrying test of a high-temperature superconducting model coil, reaching a maximum magnetic field of 10.3 Tesla.
The signal: The pairing of a young founder, top-tier private equity money, and a 3 billion yuan valuation reflects a broader capital boom in China's fusion sector — with backers from the secondary market and quantitative trading now moving into deep-tech bets.
Read more: 36Kr
Image credit: NNSANews
