Smartphone vs. Dumb Phone: Why People Are Going Basic

Sometimes a tool — like a hammer — comes along and everything starts looking like a nail. But other times, new tools end up being more than a simple blunt-force object.

The investors at SOSV are betting that plasma will become a nuanced implement capable of everything from enabling fusion power to changing the way semiconductors are made. 

It sees so much potential that it plans on investing in more than 25 plasma-related startups over the next five years. It is also opening a new Hax lab space in partnership with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Nuclear fusion is an obvious place to seed plasma startups. The potential power source works by compressing fuel until it turns into a dense plasma, so dense that atoms begin fusing, releasing energy in the process. 

“There’s so much here. The best ideas have yet to come to unlock a lot of potential in the fusion space,” Duncan Turner, general partner at SOSV, told TechCrunch. 

But fusion is just the tip of the iceberg, Turner said. The company has already invested in two companies, including YPlasma, which uses plasma actuators to cool data center chips and control airflow over wind turbine blades.

Finding new uses for plasma in semiconductor manufacturing, where the state of matter already plays a role, could unlock new materials and processes, Turner said. Spacecraft could benefit from plasma thrusters, which are more fuel efficient than traditional thrusters. Harnessing plasma could also unlock entirely new ways to make chemicals like ammonia for fertilizer or fuel from CO2.

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“All of that combined, we were like, ‘Oh wow, there’s way more than 25 companies here,’” he said. “There’s actually hundreds of companies here.”