Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a Massachusetts-based fusion startup, recently announced that it has successfully raised $863 million in its latest funding round. This particularly from the likes of Brevan Howard, Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global and Nvidia’s NVentures. All of this new money cements CFS’s position as the leading fusion startup. So far, the company has raised close to $3 billion in combined equity and debt funding.
Founded with the cutting-edge mission of commercializing fusion energy technology, CFS has quickly carved a name for itself as an industry trailblazer. The company’s hope rests on two new fusion reactor designs, Sparc and Arc, both of which use tokamak technology—the same design used in ITER. Tokamaks are donut-shaped devices that use intense superconducting magnets to control and squeeze hot plasma together, creating fusion.
Bob Mumgaard, co-founder and CEO of CFS said he was excited about the recent funding success. He stated, “We’re continuing our trend here of looking into the world and saying, ‘How do we advance fusion as fast as possible?’” This funding round is much more than simply supporting fusion as a concept. It is laser-focused on making fusion a successful commercial industry.
That recent capital infusion enables CFS to move faster its products to market and, ultimately, the development timeline. The company expects to break ground on its commercial-scale power plant, Arc, in Virginia by 2027 or 2028. At the same time, CFS looks forward to activating Sparc next year, with the goal of achieving a major milestone — scientific breakeven — by 2027. Once scientific breakeven is achieved, the fusion reaction will generate more energy than was needed to ignite it.
CFS’s innovations are the product of years of research and development. Significant challenges still exist in understanding the underlying physics of fusion reactions. As Saskia Mordijck, a key researcher at CFS, noted, “There are parts of the modeling and the physics that we don’t yet understand.” This serves as a reminder of the complexities inherent to fusion technology and the continued need for public investment and independent research.
Mumgaard acknowledged the unique nature of their technology, stating, “The fact that it’s a first of a kind technology is a wrinkle that then has a big impact on where the capital will come from.” The support from both existing investors, who increased their stakes, and new investors underscores confidence in CFS’s potential to make substantial advancements in fusion energy.
In the past few years, fusion energy has generated much excitement for its potential to deliver a transformational new way to generate power—clean, safe and virtually unlimited. By compressing and heating hydrogen atoms until they form plasma, CFS hopes to realize this fourth state of matter. As CFS accelerates toward its ambitious goals, transportation industry experts are watching its progress tightly.