Essay by Eric Worrall
Claiming you’ve found a loophole in the laws of physics apparently gets you $12 million in capital.
PRESS RELEASE
Casimir Launches with $12M Oversubscribed SeedRound to Bring World’s First Quantum Energy ChipTo Market
Led by Scout Ventures, the Funding Will Accelerate Commercialization of Chips That Generate Persistent Power from Quantum Vacuum Fields
May 12, 2026
Casimir, Inc., a quantum energy technology company founded by former NASA advanced propulsion researcher Dr. Harold “Sonny” White, today announced the close of a $12 million seed round led by Scout Ventures. The funding will commercialize the world’s first quantum vacuum energy source: semiconductor chips that harvest energy from quantum vacuum fields to produce continuous electrical power with no batteries, cords, or charging required.
The oversubscribed round exceeded its original $8 million target, reflecting strong investor confidence in Casimir’s solution to one of energy technology’s longest-standing challenges, harnessing the Casimir effect. Scout Ventures is joined by Lavrock Ventures, Cottonwood Technology, Capital Factory, American Deep Tech, and Tim Draper of Draper Associates. The funding will accelerate chip performance optimization, targeting commercial availability of the company’s first-generation MicroSparc chip by 2028, positioning Casimir to disrupt the ultra-low-power electronics sector.
Casimir’s MicroSparc chip measures just 5mm × 5mm and is designed to produce 1.5 volts at 25 microamps, performance comparable to a small rechargeable battery, but with no degradation and no replacement cycle. The company’s initial market targets ultra-low-power electronics, including tire pressure monitoring systems, embedded sensors, wearables, and other devices where battery replacement is costly or impractical, a market valued at nearly $10 billion today.
Casimir’s technology is engineered to scale across the full power spectrum. Beyond its initial IoT applications, the company’s roadmap extends into consumer electronics and mobility platforms, including electric vehicles, and ultimately into larger-scale energy systems capable of powering homes and commercial infrastructure, a total addressable market exceeding $67 billion. As artificial intelligence drives unprecedented demand for persistent, low-latency computing, Casimir’s battery-free architecture offers new possibilities for always-on memory, edge devices, and autonomous systems at every scale.
“Millions of devices will operate for years without a battery ever needing to be replaced or recharged because we have engineered a customized Casimir cavity into hardware capable of producing persistent electrical power,” said Dr. Harold “Sonny” White, Founder and CEO of Casimir. “I spent nearly two decades at NASA studying how we power humanity’s future. That work led me to the Casimir effect and the quantum vacuum, where new tools have allowed us to build on a century of scientific knowledge and bring abundant power to the world.”
Casimir’s technology was incubated at the Limitless Space Institute (LSI), a nonprofit advancing interstellar travel founded by Dr. Kam Ghaffarian, the technology investor and serial entrepreneur behind X-energy, Intuitive Machines, Axiom Space, and Quantum Space. Dr. White serves as LSI’s Director of Advanced Research and Development, the role from which Casimir’s technology emerged. Dr. Ghaffarian continues to serve as an investor and board member of Casimir.
“Casimir represents exactly the kind of breakthrough dual-use technology Scout Ventures was built to back,” said Brad Harrison, Founder and Managing Partner at Scout Ventures. “This is based on 100 years of science and we’re finally approaching a commercial product. Sonny’s ability to pull pieces from different domains of research and engineer them together into working hardware is remarkable. We’re proud to lead this round and support Casimir’s journey from applied science to deployed technology.”
Casimir’s scientific foundation has been supported by multiple research and development efforts, including DARPA-funded nanofabrication research, university partnerships, and Dr. White’s peer-reviewed work on the dynamic quantum vacuum. On March 9, 2026, Dr. White published “Emergent Quantization from a Dynamic Vacuum” in Physical Review Research (DOI: 10.1103/l8y7-r3rm), providing the theoretical foundation for why engineered Casimir cavities produce usable electrical energy and marking the latest milestone in his nearly two decades of advanced propulsion research at NASA.
Casimir is proudly American-made, actively engaged with commercial, university, and government partners for dual-use applications with direct implications for U.S. energy independence and national security.
To learn more about Casimir, visit casimir.inc.
About Casimir
Casimir is the world’s first quantum vacuum energy company, developing semiconductor chips designed to generate persistent power using the physics of the quantum vacuum, no batteries, cords, or charging required. Founded by Dr. Harold “Sonny” White, a former NASA advanced propulsion researcher, the company has engineered customized Casimir cavity structures into semiconductor hardware, technology built on nearly a century of quantum physics and validated by DARPA-funded nanofabrication and peer-reviewed research. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, and proudly built in America. www.casimir-inc.com
About Scout Ventures
Scout Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in dual-use technologies that advance U.S. national security and global stability. The firm focuses on artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, space infrastructure, cybersecurity, quantum technology, and advanced power, the critical technologies underlying how modern forces shoot, move, and communicate. Scout partners with founders from the military and intelligence community, leading national research laboratories, and top-tier research universities to back breakthrough companies at the seed stage. Scout’s mission: to invest in technology so capable, and deterrence so credible, that conflict becomes unthinkable.
Press Contact
Luca Sesti
Read more: https://www.casimir.inc/press-releases/casimir-launches-with-12m-oversubscribed-seed-round-to-bring-worlds-first-quantum-energy-chip-to-market
Luca.Sesti@lcscomms.co
The founder of Casimir Inc, Harold White, was also heavily involved in the EM Drive – a controversial reactionless space drive idea. A reactionless space drive would open the way to the stars, enabling velocities far above the most powerful proposed drives which could be achieved with existing technology, such as Project Orion. But my understanding is tests on the EM Drive to date have proved too disappointing for NASA to push forward with the idea.
Here is Sabine Hossenfelder’s take on this “breakthrough”.
The Casimir effect is real, and has been measured. Place two plates of uncharged metal really close together in a vacuum, and the plates will experience a force pushing them together. This force is created by the plates altering the quantum properties of the space between the two plates – between the two plates, some quantum states are forbidden, causing a difference between quantum fluctuations outside the plates vs the space between the plates – resulting in a slight pressure pushing the plates together.
But harvesting energy from this quantum effect is like trying to harvest energy from a magnet. You get one tiny burst of energy if you allow the plates to squash together, then nothing.
The authors claim they have found a workaround, where the quantum quiet of the Casimir effect reduces the possibility of electrons escaping from the middle of the device, resulting in a net flow of electricity.
From the about section;
…
Imagine a Pacific atoll. The ocean outside is full of chaotic wave energy, while the lagoon inside is calm. In the same way, the outer plates feel the full “wave energy” of the quantum vacuum. Every so often, an electron tunnels from the plates to the central pillars. Inside the gap, the calm lagoon fluctuations are weaker, so the electron is unlikely to return.
When the plates and pillars are connected through a circuit, electrons flow back to the plates, and the cycle repeats without stopping. By combining many of these cavities, Casimir can produce steady power at the levels needed for everyday electronics and far beyond.
…
Read more: https://www.casimir.inc/tech
I have my doubts. The power levels claimed – in the range of pico amps – could easily be instrument error, or leakage from the environment. A slight difference in temperature between different parts of the test device could produce currents on that scale.
Frankly I think the idea is absurd. Even if there is some kind of odd quantum effect detected, any movement of electrons across the “Quantum atoll” would produce a counter voltage which would repel further transfers of charge, if the movement of electricity was used to perform work – i.e. do anything useful. If such an effect is possible, a similar effect could be created with carefully placed magnetic fields – and how long have scientists tried and failed to extract free energy from magnets?
Obviously the lure, the possibility of such an extraordinary breakthrough, will always attract the hopeful. But let’s just say, given the 100% failure rate of past efforts, I’m not going to rush in to invest in this venture.
