The Venture Codex

Participated · Equity · Jul 2026

Starlight Engine was established in April 2025 as a group company of Kyoto Fusioneering and is focused on advancing fusion energy through its FAST project. FAST is a privately led, industry–academia initiative that adopts a tokamak configuration and aims to demonstrate fusion power generation in the 2030s by generating and sustaining D–T burning plasma and demonstrating integrated power generation and fuel-cycle systems. The project has completed its conceptual design and is currently moving into engineering design and construction preparations. SLE is coordinating with leading fusion researchers and a wide set of private-sector partners and universities to develop the project and domestic supply chains. The company plans to use newly raised funds to accelerate engineering and technology development, site selection, regulatory processes, supply chain development, and organizational expansion. SLE intends to grow its headcount to about 200 employees over the next two years as it advances toward fusion power demonstration and future commercial plants.

Participated · Series C · Apr 2024

Kyoto Fusioneering develops and integrates base technologies required for commercial fusion power, such as plasma heating (gyrotrons), tritium fuel cycles, tritium-breeding blankets and thermal cycles. It is advancing a three-site integrated demonstration program called UNITY, with UNITY-1 (Japan) largely built and executing hydrogen-isotope extraction tests, UNITY-2 (with CNL in Canada) preparing for tritium operations, and UNITY-3 (with ORNL and the U.S. DOE in Tennessee) targeting completion in late 2028 for neutron-irradiation tests of breeding-blanket modules. The company operates multiple global offices (Japan—Tokyo/Kyoto/Shiga—and sites in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Canada) and says it has raised cumulative funding on the order of ¥320 billion and secured over ¥140 billion in order contracts to date. Kyoto Fusioneering aims to scale gyrotron manufacturing to meet growing global demand, strengthen its supply chain and industrialize components ahead of commercial fusion demonstrations, and stated a short-term plan to reach roughly ¥10 billion in sales.

Participated · Series D · Feb 2011

Nistica supplies agile optical networking modules and has delivered thousands of its Telcordia‑certified FULL FLEDGE series wavelength selective switches to multiple customers. The company positions its products to simplify optical networks and enable colorless, directionless networks unconstrained by grids. Management is gearing up to expand manufacturing capacity and introduce a portfolio of new products aimed at simplifying optical networks. The recent financing is said to allow the company to scale without financial constraints. The company is responding to demand driven by proliferation of mobile devices and cloud computing for agile, high‑bandwidth optical modules. Nistica is based in Princeton, N.J. Nistica is a Bridgewater, NJ-based supplier of optical modules that automate and make affordable the delivery of high-bandwidth applications. Its core products are optical modules designed to simplify and lower the cost of transporting high-bandwidth traffic. The company said the new funding will enable it to introduce solutions that create "directionless networks" unconstrained by grids. Nistica closed a $6.5M Series C financing to support those efforts. The round was led by Battelle Ventures with participation from Novitas Capital, Technology Venture Partners, Fujikura and NTT Electronics Corporation. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article.