Focused Energy recently raised an oversubscribed $240 million Series A round, one of the largest early-stage rounds for a fusion power startup.
The new round, announced last week, brings the company’s total private capital raised to $300 million, the company told TechCrunch. The startup has also received $200 million in grants, collectively making it one of the most heavily funded fusion startups.
Germany-based Focused Energy is developing a reactor that will use lasers to compress fusion fuel, an approach known as inertial confinement. The lasers fire on a fuel target, which compresses under the onslaught to create conditions ripe for fusion. When atoms inside the fuel finally fuse, they release significant amounts of energy.
The company is basing its design on the experiment at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. That experiment is so far the first and only one to create a controlled nuclear fusion reaction that released more energy than it took to ignite it. The NIF connection is more than conceptual — Debbie Callahan, who helped design the fuel target at the NIF, joined Focused Energy in December as its chief strategy officer.
