Latest news with #Sparc
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Forever 21's US Operator Wins Court Approval to Liquidate
(Bloomberg) -- The former operator of Forever 21's US stores won court approval on a plan to partially repay vendors and other creditors that stand to incur big losses in the retailer's bankruptcy. Bezos Wedding Draws Protests, Soul-Searching Over Tourism in Venice US State Budget Wounds Intensify From Trump, DOGE Policy Shifts US Renters Face Storm of Rising Costs Commuters Are Caught in Johannesburg's Taxi Feuds as Transit Lags The repayment plan includes a settlement with lenders and former Forever 21 parent Sparc Group that's designed to boost recoveries for unsecured creditors that stood to get pennies on the dollar. Sparc agreed to fully waive a $323 million claim that would have diluted any amounts received by unsecured creditors. They will get 70% of any net proceeds that F21 OpCo obtains during liquidation. The deal approved Tuesday by Judge Mary Walrath is part of the firm's liquidation. An earlier version without the settlement called for unsecured creditors receiving less than 1 cent on the dollar for debt they're owed. F21 OpCo filed for Chapter 11 protection in March, two months after Sparc — which operated Forever 21 along with Aeropostale and other fashion brands — announced it had merged with JCPenney to form a new company. A committee representing unsecured creditors in bankruptcy said it investigated the Sparc transaction. In a June 11 court filing, the group said it opted for the settlement approved Tuesday because it didn't uncover potential legal claims that would 'materially improve recoveries for general unsecured creditors.' Some vendors to F21 OpCo told Bloomberg News that the firm had asked for discounts on orders and took delivery of shipments shortly before filing for bankruptcy, without disclosing plans to reorganize. Founded in 1984, Forever 21 offered young women low-cost, trendy clothing but has suffered from rising costs and competition from online retailers like Temu and Shein. The Forever 21 brand is owned by brand licenser Authentic Brands Group and is not part of the Chapter 11 case. The case is F21 OpCo LLC, number 25-10469, in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags Inside Gap's Last-Ditch, Tariff-Addled Turnaround Push Ken Griffin on Trump, Harvard and Why Novice Investors Won't Beat the Pros Is Mark Cuban the Loudmouth Billionaire that Democrats Need for 2028? Can 'MAMUWT' Be to Musk What 'TACO' Is to Trump? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M
Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines. The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises to harness the nuclear reaction that powers the sun to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth. If startups are able to complete commercially viable fusion power plants, then they have the potential to upend trillion-dollar markets. The bullish wave buoying the fusion industry has been driven by three advances: more powerful computer chips, more sophisticated AI, and powerful high-temperature superconducting magnets. Together, they have helped deliver more sophisticated reactor designs, better simulations, and more complex control schemes. It doesn't hurt that, at the end of 2022, a U.S. Department of Energy lab announced that it had produced a controlled fusion reaction that produced more power than the lasers had imparted to the fuel pellet. The experiment had crossed what's known as scientific breakeven, and while it's still a long ways from commercial breakeven, where the reaction produces more than the entire facility consumes, it was a long-awaited step that proved the underlying science was sound. Founders have built on that momentum in recent years, pushing the private fusion industry forward at a rapid pace. With a $1.8 billion Series B, Commonwealth Fusion Systems catapulted itself into the pole position in 2021. Since then, the company has been quiet on the fundraising front (no surprise), but it has been hard at work in Massachusetts building Sparc, its first-of-a-kind power plant intended to produce power at what it calls 'commercially relevant' levels. Sparc's reactor uses a tokamak design, which resembles a doughnut. The D-shaped cross section is wound with high-temperature superconducting tape, which when energized, generates a powerful magnetic field that will contain and compress the superheated plasma. In Sparc's successor, the commercial-scale Arc, heat generated from the reaction is converted to steam to power a turbine. CFS designed its magnets in collaboration with MIT, where co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard worked as a researcher on fusion reactor designs and high-temperature superconductors. Backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Engine, Bill Gates, and others, Devens, Massachusetts-based CFS expects to have Arc operational in the early 2030s. The company has raised a total of $2 billion, according to PitchBook. Founded in 1998, TAE Technologies (formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy) was spun out of the University of California, Irvine by Norman Rostoker. It uses a field-reversed configuration, but with a twist: after the two plasma shots collide in the middle of the reactor, the company bombards the plasma with particle beams to keep it spinning in a cigar shape. That improves the stability of the plasma, allowing more time for fusion to occur and for more heat to be extracted to spin a turbine. The company raised $150 million in June from existing investors, including Google, Chevron, and New Enterprise. TAE has raised $1.79 billion in total, according to PitchBook. Of all fusion startups, Helion has the most aggressive timeline. The company plans to produce electricity from its reactor in 2028. Its first customer? Microsoft. Helion, based in Everett, Washington, uses a type of reactor called a field-reversed configuration, where magnets surround a reaction chamber that looks like an hourglass with a bulge at the point where the two sides come together. At each end of the hourglass, they spin the plasma into doughnut shapes that are shot toward each other at more than 1 million mph. When they collide in the middle, additional magnets help induce fusion. When fusion occurs, it boosts the plasma's own magnetic field, which induces an electrical current inside the reactor's magnetic coils. That electricity is then harvested directly from the machine. The company raised $425 million in January 2025, around the same time that it turned on Polaris, a prototype reactor. Helion has raised $1.03 billion, according to PitchBook. Investors include Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, KKR, BlackRock, Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital Management, and Capricorn Investment Group. Pacific Fusion burst out of the gate with a $900 million Series A, a whopping sum even among well-funded fusion startups. The company will use inertial confinement to achieve fusion, but instead of lasers compressing the fuel, it will use coordinated electromagnetic pulses. The trick is in the timing: All 156 impedance-matched Marx generators need to produce 2 terawatts for 100 nanoseconds, and those pulses need to simultaneously converge on the target. The company is led by CEO Eric Lander, the scientist who led the Human Genome Project, and president Will Regan. Pacific Fusion's funding might be massive, but the startup hasn't gotten it all at once. Rather, its investors will pay out in tranches when the company achieves specified milestones, an approach that's common in biotech. Shine Technologies is taking a cautious — and possibly pragmatic — approach to generating fusion power. Selling electrons from a fusion power plant is years off, so instead, it's starting by selling neutron testing and medical isotopes. More recently, it has been developing a way to recycle radioactive waste. Shine hasn't picked an approach for a future fusion reactor, instead saying that it's developing necessary skills for when that time comes. The company has raised a total of $778 million, according to PitchBook. Investors include Energy Ventures Group, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Nucleation Capital, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Now its third-decade, General Fusion has raised $440.53 million, according to PitchBook. The Richmond, British Columbia-based company was founded in 2002 by physicist Michel Laberge, who wanted to prove a different approach to fusion known as magnetized target fusion (MTF). Investors include Jeff Bezos, Temasek, BDC Capital, and Chrysalix Venture Capital. In an General Fusion's reactor, a liquid metal wall surrounds a chamber in which plasma is injected. Pistons surrounding the wall push it inward, compressing the plasma inside and sparking a fusion reaction. The resulting neutrons heat the liquid metal, which can be circulated through a heat exchanger to generate steam to spin a turbine. General Fusion hit a rough patch in spring 2025. The company ran short of cash as it was building LM26, its latest device that it hoped would hit breakeven in 2026. Just days after hitting a key milestone, it laid off 25% of its staff. Tokamak Energy takes the usual tokamak design — the doughnut shape — and squeezes it, reducing its aspect ratio to the point where the outer bounds start resembling a sphere. Like many other tokamak-based startups, the company uses high-temperature superconducting magnets (of the rare earth barium copper oxide, or REBCO, variety). Since its design is more compact than a traditional tokamak, it requires less in the way of magnets, which should reduce costs. The Oxfordshire, UK-based startup's ST40 prototype, which looks like a large, steampunk Fabergé egg, generated an ultra-hot, 100 million degree C plasma in 2022. Its next generation, Demo 4, is currently under construction and is intended to test the company's magnets in 'fusion power plant-relevant scenarios.' Tokamak Energy raised $125 million in November 2024 to continue its reactor design efforts and expand its magnet business. In total, the company has raised $336 million from investors including Future Planet Capital, In-Q-Tel, Midven, and Capri-Sun founder Hans-Peter Wild, according to PitchBook. Zap Energy isn't using high-temperature superconducting magnets or super-powerful lasers to keep its plasma confined. Rather, it zaps the plasma (get it?) with an electric current, which then generates its own magnetic field. The magnetic field compresses the plasma about 1 millimeter, at which point ignition occurs. The neutrons released by the fusion reaction bombard a liquid metal blanket that surrounds the reactor, heating it up. The liquid metal is then cycled through a heat exchanger, where it produces steam to drive a turbine. Like Helion, Zap Energy is based in Everett, Washington, and the company has raised $327 million, according to PitchBook. Backers include Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon, Energy Impact Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Bill Gates as an angel. Most investors have favored large startups that are pursuing tokamak designs or some flavor of inertial confinement. But stellarators have shown great promise in scientific experiments, including the Wendelstein 7-X reactor in Germany. Proxima Fusion is bucking the trend, though, having attracted a €130 million Series A that brings its total raised to more than €185 million. Investors include Balderton Capital and Cherry Ventures. Stellarators are similar to tokamaks in that they confine plasma in a ring-like shape using powerful magnets. But they do it with a twist — literally. Rather than force plasma into a human-designed ring, stellarators twist and bulge to accommodate the plasma's quirks. The result should be a plasma that remains stable for longer, increasing the chances of fusion reactions. Marvel Fusion follows the inertial confinement approach, the same basic technique that the National Ignition Facility used to prove that controlled nuclear fusion reactions could produce more power than was needed to kick them off. Marvel fires powerful lasers at a target embedded with silicon nanostructures that cascade under the bombardment, compressing the fuel to the point of ignition. Because the target is made using silicon, it should be relatively simple to manufacture, leaning on the semiconductor manufacturing industry's decades of experience. The inertial confinement fusion startup is building a demonstration facility in collaboration with Colorado State University, which it expects to have operational by 2027. Munich-based Marvel has raised a total of $161 million from investors including b2venture, Deutsche Telekom, Earlybird, HV Capital, and Taavet Hinrikus and Albert Wenger as angels. First Light dropped its pursuit of fusion power in March 2025, pivoting instead to become a technology supplier to fusion startups and other companies. The startup had previously followed an approach known as inertial confinement, in which fusion fuel pellets are compressed until they ignite. First Light, which is based in Oxfordshire, U.K., has raised $140 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Invesco, IP Group, and Tencent. Though nothing about fusion can be described as simple, Xcimer takes a relatively straightforward approach: follow the basic science that's behind the National Ignition Facility's breakthrough net-positive experiment, and redesign the technology that underpins it from the ground up. The Colorado-based startup is aiming for a 10-megajoule laser system, five times more powerful than NIF's setup that made history. Molten salt walls surround the reaction chamber, absorbing heat and protecting the first solid wall from damage. Founded in January 2022, Xcimer has already raised $109 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Hedosophia, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Emerson Collective, Gigascale Capital, and Lowercarbon Capital. This story was originally published in September 2024 and will be continually updated. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Axios
29-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
How JCPenney plans to take "fashion inclusivity" to next level
JCPenney is taking aim at fashion's size gap by partnering with model and entrepreneur Ashley Graham to launch a new plus-size clothing line. Why it matters: The collaboration focuses on full-figured women and builds on the Texas-based retailer's "fashion for all" philosophy, JCPenney CEO Michelle Wlazlo told Axios. 68% of American women wear a size 14 or above, yet less than 20% of apparel is made in those sizes, according to the retailer. The average U.S. woman wears a size 16 or 18, according a 2016 study still considered the industry benchmark. Ashley Graham for JCPenney to debut in fall The big picture: Graham's exclusive namesake collection is set to be released at JCPenney this fall. It will be sold in stores and online. The line promises trend-forward, high-quality pieces for curvier bodies — at affordable prices. "It'll be a range of prices and a range of products … but none of the prices will go outside of the realm of the value proposition that we've always had at JCPenney," Wlazlo said. Flashback: JCPenney and retail store operator Sparc announced in January they were merging to form a U.S. retailing behemoth Catalyst Brands. Earlier this month, JCPenney unveiled new brand positioning and motto— "Yes, JCPenney!" JCPenney redefining plus category Zoom in: JCPenney offers extended sizes across its private labels as part of its commitment to inclusivity. But, Wlazlo said, this is a move to "redefine the plus category with fashion-forward, runway-inspired looks." "It's a bold approach for this customer and it's only for them, which is most of America by the way," she said. "We're really flipping the switch on this because while we offer everything for our customers in all sizes, the majority of offerings out there don't," Wlazlo said. "This isn't just a partnership — it's the culmination of our shared history and a meaningful step forward in making real, affordable fashion truly inclusive," Graham said in a statement. JCPenney on value and tariffs State of play: JCPenney is working to make sure "value stays at the forefront of everything we're doing regardless of tariffs," Wlazlo told Axios. "We will adjust as needed to mitigate any pressures there," she said. "We have a diversified portfolio and we have a diversified country base." "I feel very confident that we're making decisions that protect our customers and the value proposition that you're used to seeing from us, the quality and the fashion," Wlazlo said.
Fashion Network
23-04-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
‘They played us': Forever 21 vendors scorn retailer's bankruptcy
It's not the first time a Forever 21 bankruptcy has hurt vendors, some of whom have come to rely on the company for business. After its first filing, suppliers and others owed payments lost out on millions. Many vendors are also facing steeper financial pressure now thanks to President Donald Trump 's sweeping tariffs, which have forced many US businesses to consider reworking their supply chains. A representative for Forever 21 declined to comment. For retailers, taking shipments right up until bankruptcy can help load up inventory and boost proceeds from liquidation sales. But suppliers can be hurt in the process. While vendors are entitled to a priority status on their claim for the value of goods received by a debtor within 20 days of its bankruptcy filing, senior lenders still come first. If a retailer's going-out-of-business sale doesn't raise enough money to repay them, the suppliers who helped stock the stores get nothing. In Forever 21's case, secured creditors stand to recover just 3% of their claims, according to court documents. 'This is the oldest trick in the book,' said bankruptcy attorney Christopher Simon at law firm Cross and Simon. 'Borrowers build up their inventory, which is their lenders' collateral, and then that collateral is sold for the benefit of the secured lender first in every case.' 'They are fattening the cow before the slaughter,' he said. 'The folks who supply that feed sometimes don't get paid.' Ahn has filed a roughly $10.2 million claim against the Forever 21 operator, according to court documents. The retailer still owes him payments for goods received in September, he said. 'They should have repaid the old debt first, which is customary in the industry. They must have known the day when they were going to file for bankruptcy while asking us to cut the deal,' Ahn said. 'We were loyal to them until the last moment. But they played us.' Two China-based vendors interviewed by Bloomberg News, who asked not to be identified discussing private information, experienced a similar course of events to Ahn. General creditors 'are set up to get absolutely smoked by this bankruptcy' and the unsecured creditor committee is 'going to do everything in its power' to test and improve the result, Justin Alberto, an attorney for the committee, said during a court hearing this month. However, the Forever 21 operator's $1.6 billion in funded debt is making it unlikely vendors will see anything, the group of creditors has said. In January, vendors got an email from Barbara Fevelo-Hoad, the chief sourcing officer for Forever 21 parent Sparc, announcing JCPenney was acquiring Sparc to create Catalyst Brands. She said the deal would allow for more investment in the brands. 'Please know that in the near term, we expect business to continue as usual,' Fevelo-Hoad wrote in the email, according to a copy seen by Bloomberg News. The group of unsecured creditors said it's investigating the tie-up and has alleged the deal 'joined and obligated' Forever 21 and certain affiliates to pay JCPenney's existing debt. Forever 21's board has determined it has no 'colorable or valuable claims' against Authentic Brands Group and Simon Property Group, which controlled Sparc along with fast-fashion powerhouse Shein, according to a March court filing. The retailer had tapped law firm Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor to review the JCPenney acquisition and other transactions involving Simon and Authentic, which owns the Forever 21 brand. A representative for Authentic declined to comment. Representatives for Simon and Catalyst Brands didn't immediately provide a comment. Many vendors who are owed money no longer have confidence in the large financial backers that rescued the Forever 21's US operator after its first bankruptcy. Since then, the company's funded debt has ballooned from $230 million to the $1.6 billion it had when it filed to reorganize in March, court documents show. 'We really believed in Forever 21's future when it was bought out by Sparc because we thought Simon and Authentic Brands were reputable companies that we could trust,' Ahn said. 'I still can't believe a large American company like Forever 21 just destroyed its own credibility overnight.'
Observer
17-03-2025
- Business
- Observer
Forever 21 operator files for bankruptcy
Forever 21's operator in the United States filed for bankruptcy Sunday, as the apparel company, which helped popularize fast fashion in the United States, struggles to compete with online retailers. F21 OpCo, the operator, as well as some U.S. subsidiaries, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Bankruptcy Court of Delaware, court documents show. The company listed its estimated assets as between $100 million and $500 million, and liabilities of $1 billion to $5 billion. The company also filed for bankruptcy in 2019. Forever 21 found success in the early 2000s selling cheaply produced fashion that appealed to young women seeking clothes inspired by designer styles, at rock-bottom prices. At its peak, it had more than $4 billion in annual sales and employed more than 43,000 people worldwide in hundreds of stores. But the retailer expanded too aggressively just as technology was beginning to upend its business. It first filed for bankruptcy in 2019, closing down more than 30% of its stores in the United States, before being bought out of bankruptcy by Sparc Group, a joint venture between Authentic Brands Group and Simon Property Group, a mall operator. In 2023, Sparc signed an agreement with Shein, the Chinese e-commerce retailer known for its ultralow prices. Shein agreed to buy about a third of Sparc's shares. Under the agreement, Shein could one day operate stores-within-stores at Forever 21 outlets while Forever 21's clothes would be sold on Shein's site. Forever 21 did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This article originally appeared in
