Focused Energy has now raised $300 million in private capital, after a $240 million Series A that the company announced last week. It has also received $200 million in grants. TechCrunch described it as one of the most heavily funded fusion startups.
RWE was the main investor, the company said. SPRIND, the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, Prime Movers Lab and the European Innovation Council Fund also took part. Focused Energy calls it the largest fully secured Series A in the global fusion industry to date, and says the round makes it the most valuable fusion company in Europe.
What the money is for
The Darmstadt-based company wants to build the first laser fusion power plant at the former RWE site in Biblis, Hesse, near Frankfurt am Main, by the mid-2030s. A demonstration system called Lighthouse is planned for a decommissioned fission plant in Germany that RWE operated. The company says the Biblis project could become a blueprint for scaling fusion, with tens of thousands of skilled jobs in a new industry “Made in Germany.”
Its design follows the experiment at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, so far the first and only controlled fusion reaction to release more energy than it took to ignite. Debbie Callahan, who helped design the fuel target there, joined Focused Energy in December as chief strategy officer. Her work is to simplify that target. It is complex and hard to make, and the NIF fires only about 400 shots per year. Focused Energy would have to manage 10 shots per second, or about 864,000 per day.
Part of the answer is to remove the hohlraum, a precision-manufactured gold cylinder that turns laser energy into X-rays for compressing the fuel pellet. With “direct drive,” the lasers hit the pellet themselves, which should lift the reactor’s efficiency.
What officials and executives said
RWE chief executive Markus Krebber said Germany is “well-positioned to take a leading global role in nuclear fusion,” and that the group was prepared to expand its investment further.
Thomas Forner, co-founder and chief executive of Focused Energy, said the round confirms the company’s approach, which he said took it from a start-up to the leading laser fusion firm “in just four years.” Co-founder Markus Roth, the chief scientist, put it more bluntly: “Speed is what counts now on the road to the first fusion power plant in Germany.”
Kaweh Mansoori, Hesse’s economic affairs minister, called the investment “a clear sign of confidence in our region” and said such projects create high-quality jobs. SPRIND director Rafael Laguna de la Vera described building the first commercial fusion reactor as “the most important moonshot mission of the 21st century.”
The company has a team of more than 160 scientists and engineers from over 20 nations. Rivals are also raising money. Thea Energy took in $100 million last week, and Inertia Enterprises closed a $450 million Series A in February. In January, Type One Energy reported almost $90 million in hand against a $250 million Series B target.
Sources
- Focused Energy raises whopping $240M Series A for laser-powered fusion tech | TechCrunch
- Focused Energy Sets a New Benchmark: $240 Million for the Largest Series A Financing in the Global Fusion Industry
- Focused Energy — Laser Fusion
