Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a US-based start-up commercialising fusion energy, announced on 26 May that it has raised $84 million in A2 funding, bringing the company’s total funding to more than $200 million.
The A2 round was led by Temasek with participation from new investors Equinor and Devonshire Investors, a private equity group affiliated with FMR, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, as well as current investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Engine, ENI Next, Future Ventures, Hostplus, Khosla Ventures, Moore Strategic Ventures, Safar Partners, Schooner Capital, Starlight Ventures, and “others committed to accelerating the path towards commercial fusion energy”.
CFS founded in 2018, has a programme to develop high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets and design and build the world’s first net-energy-gain fusion system, called SPARC. CFS said both are on schedule and below budget.
“With this additional funding, CFS will continue to grow its capabilities to offer fusion power plants, fusion engineering services, and HTS magnets. This includes accelerating progress to build SPARC, the new CFS headquarters, and manufacturing facilities.” The funding will also support business development surrounding HTS magnets, the key component to SPARC, which also has various other commercial uses.
CFS CEO Bob Mumgaard said: “This funding is further evidence of a growing fusion industry and the important transition that is taking place as fusion expands from public-funded research to the private companies that will drive commercial fusion to market to help solve climate change.”
CFS is collaborating with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center to design and build SPARC. This includes the development of the HTS magnets, which will allow CFS to build significantly smaller and lower-cost fusion power plants.
CFS said the collaboration is on track to demonstrate a 20 Tesla, large-bore magnet in 2021. This magnet test, the first of its kind in the world, opens a widely identified transformational opportunity for fusion energy. These magnets will then be used in constructing SPARC to demonstrate net energy gain from fusion for the first time in history. SPARC will pave the way for the first commercially viable fusion power plant called ARC.
