Darren Woulfe - Commonwealth Fusion Systems | Fusion Business Landscape 2025

Darren Woulfe ↗

Head of Magnet Business · Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Darren Woulfe is an American energy sector executive and engineer and the Head of Magnet Business at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT spinout developing commercial fusion energy through high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. He joined CFS in 2021 and oversees the magnet program for compact tokamaks like SPARC and ARC. Previously, Woulfe served as CFO at Makani, an Alphabet X moonshot for airborne wind energy, led procurement in solar firms like Sungevity and Recurrent Energy, and started his career as a process engineer at Intel. He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Speaking events

2

DTW editions

2

Published talks

1

Commonwealth Fusion Systems ↗

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is the world’s leading and largest private fusion company. The company’s marquee fusion project, SPARC, will generate net energy, paving the way for limitless carbon-free energy. The company has raised $3 billion in capital since it was founded in 2018. CFS develops high-temperature superconducting magnets to enable compact tokamak fusion power plants. The company manufactures these magnets at its Devens, Massachusetts facility where it is also building SPARC, a tokamak demonstration machine fueled by deuterium-tritium plasma to achieve net energy gain with Q>1, with operations targeted for 2027. It also is developing and plan to construct it's first ARC power plant, called the Fall Line Fusion Power Station, a grid-scale fusion power plant producing 400 MWe set to come online in Virginia in the early 2030s. Google has committed to purchasing 200 MW of electricity from ARC, with Eni, the large Italian oil and gas company also agreeing to offtake additional power in a deal worth over $1B. CFS also has a joint development agreement (JDA) and strategic partnership with Dominion Energy, who is assisting in the development of the power plant. CFS raised $863 million in its Series B2 funding round in August 2025, following a $1.8 billion Series B in 2021 with participation from Temasek, Google, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Eni, for a total close to $3 billion to date. Bob Mumgaard serves as CEO and co-founder, while Brandon Sorbom is Chief Science Officer and co-founder, both with PhDs in plasma physics from MIT.

Events

3

Talks presented

1

Registrations reached

1,229

Hyperstition Incorporated ↗

Science Fiction as a Service.

Events

47

Talks hosted

10

Registrations reached

13,413

Gigascale Capital ↗

Gigascale Capital backs early-stage companies rebuilding the physical economy for climate impact. Founded in 2023 by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai, the firm has invested in more than 25 companies across clean energy, advanced manufacturing, grid infrastructure, and physical AI. Some decarbonize directly. Others build the enabling layers that make physical systems faster and cheaper to design, build, and deploy. In both cases, climate impact follows from better performance.

Events

2

Talks supported

10

Registrations reached

832

Lowercarbon Capital ↗

Lowercarbon Capital is a climate-focused venture capital firm founded in 2018 by renowned investor Chris Sacca (formerly of Lowercase Capital, with early bets on Uber and Twitter) and his partners, dedicated to backing companies that drastically reduce CO₂ emissions, remove carbon from the atmosphere, and develop technologies to mitigate climate impacts. With over $2 billion in assets under management, it invests primarily in early-stage and growth-stage startups across sectors like clean energy, carbon removal, sustainable materials, food/agriculture, transportation, and advanced manufacturing. The firm has built a large portfolio of over 200 companies, including unicorns such as Crusoe (sustainable compute infrastructure), Watershed (enterprise carbon management), and Solugen (bio-based chemicals), alongside notable investments in frontier tech like Zap Energy (fusion), Heirloom and Avalanche Energy (carbon removal and fusion), Sublime Systems (low-carbon cement), and Crux (clean energy tax credits marketplace). Lowercarbon stands out for its aggressive, founder-friendly approach—providing hands-on support, hustling for portfolio success, and funding high-risk research—while emphasizing that profitable, superior technologies are key to scaling climate solutions and "unf**king the planet."

Events

5

Talks supported

10

Registrations reached

1,932