Fusionality, a Lausanne startup founded by former Google DeepMind researchers Federico Felici and Jonas Buchli, has raised CHF 3 million, about $3.7 million, in pre-seed funding led by Founderful and Playfair. The money will fund engineering hires and its first paying customers as it builds measurement, simulation and control software for fusion reactor operators.
What the company does
Fusionality builds software that helps fusion energy companies run their reactors. Inside a fusion device, a cloud of plasma is heated to around 100 million degrees and held in place by magnetic fields. Sensors on the reactor produce raw measurements that must be turned into control signals within milliseconds, so that heating, fuelling and magnetic systems can react and keep the plasma away from the reactor walls. Fusionality’s software handles this conversion, alongside modelling and control tools.
The company’s founders, Federico Felici and Jonas Buchli, met at EPFL’s Swiss Plasma Center. Felici holds a PhD in plasma physics and worked on the TCV tokamak before joining Google DeepMind. Buchli, an electrical engineer from ETH Zurich, led robotics and reinforcement learning teams at DeepMind. Together with colleagues, they applied reinforcement learning to control the magnets shaping plasma on the TCV tokamak, publishing the work in Nature in 2022. Fusionality now offers that expertise as a software layer that fusion companies can adopt rather than build from scratch.
The round
Fusionality has raised CHF 3 million, stated by the company as approximately $3.7 million, in a pre-seed round led by Founderful and Playfair, according to Tech Funding News. The report does not name other participating investors. The funds will pay for control engineers, computational physicists, plasma measurement specialists and software engineers based in Lausanne, and will go towards securing Fusionality’s first paying customers.
“We have spent most of our careers making plasmas in real fusion devices behave as we wanted. Now we founded Fusionality to bring that expertise to our customers and partners, helping them tackle some of the hardest bottlenecks in fusion operations,” said Federico Felici, co-founder and chief executive of Fusionality.
Sam Stratton, founder of Commotion Labs. 10 September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What does Fusionality do?
Fusionality develops measurement, simulation and control software for fusion reactors. Its tools convert raw plasma measurements into control signals within milliseconds, helping operators keep the plasma away from the reactor walls.
Who invested in Fusionality?
Founderful and Playfair led Fusionality’s pre-seed round of CHF 3 million, about $3.7 million. No other investors were named in the announcement.
What will Fusionality use the funding for?
The money will go towards hiring control engineers, computational physicists, plasma measurement specialists and software engineers in Lausanne, and towards signing the company’s first paying customers.
