Marvel Fusion

What they do

Marvel Fusion is developing laser-driven inertial fusion. Instead of holding plasma in a magnetic cage, its approach fires extremely short, high-intensity laser pulses at nanostructured fuel targets to trigger fusion reactions. The company aims to integrate targets, lasers, fuel cycle and plant engineering into a single system, and it plans three lines of business: industrial laser systems, neutron sources and, eventually, fusion power plants.

Why it matters

The 2022 ignition result at the US National Ignition Facility showed that laser fusion can release more energy than the laser delivers to the target, reviving commercial interest in the field. Marvel Fusion's bet is on a different laser regime and on targets engineered at the nanoscale, which it argues could make the process more efficient. It has also pursued a deuterium-boron fuel cycle, which would produce far fewer neutrons; researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, among others, are sceptical that this fuel can deliver the necessary gains, so the concept remains a high-risk scientific wager.

The company is also building nearer-term revenue. In September 2026 it launched Caelora to commercialise high-energy laser systems, and in August 2026 it signed a letter of intent with the State of Colorado and Siemens Energy to advance laser-driven fusion.

Products to know

• Colorado State University laser facility: a short-pulse laser research facility on the Fort Collins campus, built in partnership with the university.
• Caelora: the venture set up to sell high-energy laser systems.
• Nanostructured targets: the engineered fuel pellets at the core of its fusion concept.

The German angle

Moritz von der Linden, Georg Korn, Karl-Georg Schlesinger and Pasha Shabalin founded Marvel Fusion in Munich in 2019. The city offers deep laser physics expertise, including research groups at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, with which the company cooperates. Its transatlantic structure, with experiments in Colorado and engineering in Bavaria, reflects how German deep tech firms increasingly reach for American facilities and public funding while keeping their base at home. Marvel Fusion says it is evaluating sites in Germany for a future prototype power plant.