Project DarkStar: OpenStar’s journey in stealth

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OpenStar Technologies emerged from stealth mode in early August this year after raising a $10 million seed round led by Outset Ventures. The 30-strong Wellington company has been operating since 2021 and is aiming to harness the potential of fusion energy by building a prototype fusion reactor. Founder Ratu Mataira explains why they operated in stealth mode for so long.

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There are two major components to any given fusion concept, which are then reflected in the companies that pursue them. The first is an understanding of the plasma physics – the study of the physical matter undergoing fusion. The second is an engineering understanding of the method of confinement – the techniques and technology being used to confine and heat the fusion fuel in question. And, quite frankly, the traditional efforts to build fusion machines are led by that first component of understanding the plasma physics.

Our journey at OpenStar has not been typical. Born in the Antipodean south, we did not start out with a world-leading grasp of the fusion concept we set out to pursue. The levitated dipole reactor had been a dormant concept for a decade by the time I looked at it. We’re not the experts, but where our expertise did lie led us to believe that the dipole was worth reviving.

This was the first, but not the most important, motivating factor for OpenStar to begin its journey in stealth: ignorance on our part of more than half of what we needed to know to be a successful company.

However, staying in stealth is absolutely a trade-off. Companies are just collections of motivated people, and inspiring people to buy into and contribute to the journey is the most important thing you can do. And building OpenStar in the open now, and being able to get the wide base of support we are being afforded, clearly highlights what we paid as part of this trade-off.

"My pride in what we have accomplished to date had also grown, so my willingness to take that pride into the open had grown."

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Nonetheless, we decided this was a trade-off worth making. Even if the value of that trade-off flipped sooner than we expected, let me lay out why OpenStar really stayed in stealth.

Reason number one: the dark forest of things you don’t understand. As I said above, in the beginning we did not have a world-class view of the plasma physics, and our pitch was largely a representation of the arguments made by those projects that had come before ours.

Frankly, we did not have the information we needed to navigate such a company in the open landscape. We needed to get that information because we knew we could otherwise stay in stealth forever. Looking back, I see there was very little risk here, but that’s the beauty of hindsight.

Reason number two (which I stand by even now): we hadn’t done anything! Companies are about driving excitement and commitment, but deep-tech companies also need to be about technical results and prowess. When we went out into the world, I wanted to make sure we had something to show. 

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Going public

So how much did we need to get done before I was ready to take us into the public domain? Well, as it turns out, we haven’t yet done the things that I thought we would by the time we came out of stealth. I legitimately thought we’d make our public splash by announcing that we had built our machine and sparked our first plasma. However, the trade-offs – the costs of being in stealth – grew faster than I expected. 

But then again, my pride in what we have accomplished to date had also grown, so my willingness to take that pride into the open had grown. And so reason two seemed less and less relevant.

The thing that pushed us over the line to come out of stealth – the key piece of evidence we needed – was it was becoming ever more difficult to have the number and depth of conversations we needed to build OpenStar, particularly around talent.

There is a deep irony to this; that one of our reasons to stay in stealth – our nascent knowledge of the plasma physics – was really going to be solved by recruiting talent. We needed to bring the knowledge in. But yet again, as our confidence that we had become experts in the physics also grew, our fear of a misstep abated.

Once we realised we were coming out of stealth, we also realised the company was going to make a splash, whether we wanted it to or not. While that may be a story for another time, it highlights a third, more personal reason: I don’t like being the centre of attention. 

If you are an entrepreneur just trying to build a great business, spending time in the limelight can be a real distraction, if not deeply uncomfortable. I think those feelings – my feelings – are valid. But on the other side, I’m really glad that New Zealand knows what we are working on, and the support has been monumental.

But ultimately, for reasons rational or otherwise, the choice to build in stealth or in the open is one that only you – as the leader of your business  – can make.

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