UK kickstarts StarMaker One to boost UK fusion power
The UK government is providing £20m to kickstart an investment fund for fusion power technology.
The StarMaker One fund aims to raised up to £150m (€175m, $200m) to help fusion businesses and start-ups in the sector grow and commercialise at scale. This is the first early-stage fusion energy venture capital fund outside the US and the first of its kind with a government as an investor.
This is intended to unlock further investment from the private sector as the industry grows. The funding boost will help smaller companies provide training for their workforce in key areas such as physics, engineering and chemistry. It will also support companies to develop technologies and capitalise on the opportunities of fusion energy in markets such as magnetics, industrial AI, robotics, healthcare, transportation and energy storage.
Companies in the UK have identified lack of access to capital as a barrier to scaling up and commercialising their businesses. The U government believes an injection of cash will give the private sector confidence to invest in this area. However this is competing with a growing technology base in small, modular fission reactors that are now being commercialised to power AI datacentres.
East X Ventures in London, a subsidiary of a commodities fund, will act as the fund manager and the UK government will receive a share of any returns made by the partnership. The fund manager was the lead investor in UK Atomic Energy Authority spinout Tokamak Energy in November last year, raising $125m to grow its high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology business, TE Magnetics.
Founded in 2009, Tokamak Energy, the only private fusion company with more than 10 years’ experience designing, building and operating tokamak fusion reactors and has raised $275m from private investors and $60m from the UK and US governments. This is driving a pilot plant design programme as well as the development and testing of a high field spherical tokamak at its site near Oxford, UK.
First Light Fusion, also in Oxford, is also developing a fusion reactor.
“Fusion has the potential to provide us with energy security, whilst attracting the best technologies to our shores and training up the next generation of British scientists and engineers,” said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. The government has already announced funding of £410 million for fusion research and collaboration with other countries.
www.eastx.com; www.tokomakenergy.com; firstlightfusion.com
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