Vancouver fusion energy company General Fusion has raised $33.5 million CAD ($25 million USD) in what it called the first close of its Series F raise as it shifts focus to its Canadian project.
Investors that participated in the round include BDC Capital and GIC, a sovereign wealth fund established by the Government of Singapore. The financing also includes grants from the Government of British Columbia, building on the federal government’s ongoing support through its Strategic Innovation Fund.
General Fusion said the machine will provide electricity to the grid by the early to mid-2030s.
As reported by The Globe and Mail, this financing comes at a time when General Fusion is shifting plans. The energy company confirmed this week it was delaying its timeline for building a demonstration plant in the United Kingdom so it could focus on a machine it was developing at its headquarters in Richmond, British Columbia.
Founded in 2002, General Fusion’s aim is to shift the world’s energy supply by developing a fast, practical, and cost-competitive path to commercial fusion power. Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that generates electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions.
General Fusion established an agreement to build and operate its fusion demonstration plant at UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham campus in 2021. The plant was being built to showcase General Fusion’s Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology, which the company said would pave the way for its subsequent commercial pilot plant. Construction for the demonstration plan was expected to start this summer.
General Fusion told The Globe and Mail those plans are now being delayed in lieu of developing a new MTF machine in Canada. General Fusion CEO Greg Twinney told The Globe that this new machine “reflects current market conditions and also where we’re at as a company from a technology development perspective.”
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Twinney also said this decision “will allow us to demonstrate technical results in a shorter time frame at a fraction of the cost of what we previously planned.”
According to General Fusion, the machine will provide electricity to the grid with commercial fusion energy by the early to mid-2030s.
The company has not disclosed further details regarding potential additional closes for its Series F financing. BetaKit has reached out for comment. General Fusion previously raised $166 million CAD in Series E financing last November, following another $85 million CAD Series E round in 2019.
Featured image courtesy General Fusion