One of Wisconsin's most promising technology companies has new capital to fund commercialization of its fusion technology and says it's approaching profitability.
SHINE Technologies LLC, which has its headquarters in Janesville, raised $70 million from investors to complete the commercialization and scale-up of its near-term fusion technology applications, the company announced earlier this month. That includes accelerating the production of a radioactive agent used to treat cancer.
"This financing is expected to carry us through several major inflection points, including profitability, as we continue to refine fusion technology to solve today's problems in medicine, manufacturing, energy and beyond," SHINE founder and CEO Greg Piefer said in a company press release earlier this month.
In the summer of 2023, SHINE opened a new facility in Janesville to scale up its production of lutetium-177, a medical isotope used in targeted cancer therapies. The facility is expected to be fully operational by the end of the year and will be the largest North American facility dedicated to producing that isotope, the company said.
At full capacity, the facility is expected to be capable of producing up to 200,000 doses of the life-saving treatment per year, SHINE said. The company made its first commercial sale of Lu-177 in 2020. The isotope is used in millions of procedures annually, according to SHINE.
Regarded by at least some investors as one of Wisconsin's most promising technology companies, SHINE has raised more than $750 million to date including the new funding, the company said. The latest capital came from existing investors including Baillie Gifford and Fidelity Management & Research Co., as well as new institutional investors, SHINE said.
"SHINE's unique approach is solving critical problems in the radioisotope supply chain and helping get these medicines to the people who need them," Baillie Gifford investment manager Luke Ward said in a statement.
SHINE is valued at "a couple billion" dollars, BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation Inc. founder and executive board chair Tom Shannon told Wisconsin Inno earlier this year. BrightStar was an early investor in SHINE.
In the long term, SHINE's goal is to provide cost-effective fusion energy.
