Europe’s best-funded nuclear fusion startup Tokamak Energy has raised $75m as it looks to commercialise its tech.
Sifted reported in January that the UK-based company had raised $50m, which Tokamak says is part of the same round (which totals $125m).
East X Ventures and Lingotto Investment Management led the round, with participation from Furukawa Electric Company, British Patient Capital, global maritime company BW Group and Sabanci Climate Ventures.
The fresh capital takes the startup’s total funding to $335m, including $275m from private investors and $60m from the UK and US governments. That’s more than three times as much as the next-best funded fusion startup in Europe, Germany’s Marvel Fusion, which has raised $110m since launching in 2019.
Fusion tech
Founded in 2009 as a spinout from the UK Atomic Energy Authority — a government organisation focused on advancing nuclear tech — Tokamak is looking to build commercial fusion technology using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets within “tokamaks”.
These are devices that create a nuclear fusion reaction by holding plasma in a doughnut shape using a magnetic field while running an electrical current through it.
Its spherical fusion reactor is more efficient than the conventional tokamak shape, the company says, meaning it can operate with lower capital investment and operating costs as well as on a smaller scale.
Fusion is the theoretical process of hydrogen isotopes colliding and producing enormous amounts of energy — far more efficiently than current alternatives like fossil fuels and renewables — and with no long-lived nuclear waste, but no one’s managed to crack the technical challenge in practice.
Commercial viability
It’ll be the 2030s before Tokamak can hope to make money from fusion power, the company told Sifted in January.
Of 39 fusion companies surveyed by the Fusion Industry Association in 2023, two-thirds said commercial viability would be demonstrated between 2031-2040.
In the meantime, Tokamak is hoping to generate revenue from selling its HTS magnet tech, which it says can be used to create high electrical efficiency in a variety of use cases. The company is targeting sectors like renewable energy, including other nuclear fusion companies, industrial applications, scientific research, medicine and land, water, air and space propulsion.
Tokamak reported losses of £32m for 2023, according to its most recent financial accounts, making £76k in revenue. It said while the company expected to be able to start commercialising some of its tech in 2024, it did not expect to earn significant revenue until after 2025 and may never achieve profitability.
Market activity
While fusion startups in the US have raised the lion’s share of funding in the sector — Pacific Fusion raised $900m in October this year and Commonwealth Fusion Systems $1.8bn in 2021 — there are several European players.
German duo Marvel Fusion and Proxima Fusion raised this year, in €63m and €20m rounds, respectively. UK-based First Light Fusion has also raised $101m since launching in 2011 — and is looking to raise another £60m before January 2025, according to its most recent company accounts filed in September.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/tokamak-raise-nuclear-news/
