Fusion developer Type One Energy announced today it has raised $200 million USD in a Series B round co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Clutterbuck Capital, as it advances plans for a 400-megawatt commercial fusion plant at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Bull Run site in east Tennessee.
Lowercarbon Capital, Siemens Energy Ventures and SiteGround Capital joined the round as new investors, along with others the company did not name explicitly.
Chief executive Christofer Mowry told Reuters that the round brings the Knoxville-based company’s total funding to more than $400 million, and Pitchbook data ranks it as the third-largest Series B in the fusion sector over the past five years.
The funding will support Type One’s FusionDirect technology development program and Project Infinity, which includes Infinity One, a stellarator engineering prototype and Infinity Two, the 400 MWe plant the company describes as the world’s first commercial fusion power plant.
Both Infinity One and Infinity Two are planned for Bull Run, a coal plant TVA retired in December 2023, and the company is targeting commissioning of Infinity One in 2029 and full startup of Infinity Two by 2034, subject to further approvals and TVA decisions, per Nuclear News Network.
The round closes five weeks after Tennessee granted Type One the first fusion-specific license issued by a U.S. state, while also backing the company’s plan to commercialize fusion as an original equipment manufacturer, relying on established energy companies to manufacture, build, finance, and operate its plants.
A fusion company that would rather not be a factory
Under its Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) model, Type One designs the technology while partners supply the manufacturing, engineering, construction, financing and operating capabilities needed to bring a plant online.
The company says the approach draws on the expertise and existing production infrastructure of established energy firms rather than recreating them in-house.
Type One argues the model reduces the capital required for each plant, lowers development costs and risks, and allows several fusion projects to move forward at the same time, describing the strategy as differentiated within the fusion industry. It also pointed to Siemens Energy Ventures, the venture arm of the German energy technology group, as an example of the industrial partnerships reflected in its capital structure.
“Type One Energy’s pragmatic, execution-focused approach, strong industry and research network, and experienced and knowledgeable team provide a strong foundation for turning scientific progress into a commercially viable energy solution,” said Enrique Gonzalez Zanetich, partner at Siemens Energy Ventures.
Mowry also said the investor mix signals support for the strategy. “The breadth and quality of investors in this funding round demonstrates growing support for our strategy to industrialize the commercial deployment of fusion energy,” he stressed, adding that the financing allows the company to focus on its stellarator technology and Project Infinity design work “while working with experienced industrial partners to deliver the first commercial fusion power plant at TVA’s Bull Run site”.
Betting that the physics is mostly settled
Type One’s strategy rests on the view that the main obstacles to commercializing stellarator fusion are now engineering and industrial rather than scientific.
A stellarator confines superheated plasma inside a twisted, doughnut-shaped magnetic field, a design that has been studied for decades. It differs from the tokamak, the more common fusion design used in machines such as ITER, the international project under construction in France, according to World Nuclear News.
The company says its focus is on turning that research base into power plant designs that can be built and deployed at scale. To get there, Type One combines advanced manufacturing methods, modern computational physics and high-field superconducting magnets.
Mowry made the same point to Reuters, saying Infinity One is “not an exceptional science project.” Its purpose, he stressed, is to confirm that the company’s design for the power plant’s fusion machine performs as intended.
“Fusion is approaching the point where deployment, not discovery, defines the challenge,” said Carmichael Roberts of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which has backed Type One since its 2023 seed round.
“Type One Energy brings together the necessary business and technical leadership, optimized stellarator technology, and industrial relationships that will help move fusion from breakthrough science to commercial power plants,” he added.
A license in Tennessee and a second project in the UK
On August 31, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issued Type One the state’s first fusion-specific byproduct material license, making Tennessee the first state to license a company under a regulatory framework written specifically for fusion machines. The framework took effect in June.
The license covers the first phase of Project Infinity, a fusion development campus at Bull Run to be built with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TVA and the University of Tennessee, though it does not yet authorize the full power plant.
Type One says the licensing process, designed to be consistent with national regulatory standards, sets an international benchmark for fusion plant “safety by design”. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conversation announcement details how the state defines a fusion machine.
The company is also pursuing a second commercial project through the UK Infinity Fusion Consortium, which it formed in May with British fusion company Tokamak Energy and engineering firm AECOM. The consortium combines Type One’s Infinity Two design with AECOM’s engineering capabilities and Tokamak Energy’s high temperature superconducting magnet technology and UK manufacturing base.
Sheffield Forgemasters and Barclays are now also working with the group, with Tokamak Energy developing a competing reactor design, making its role as a supplier one of the clearest examples of the partner model Type One is pursuing.
Type One now has a license, a site, and fresh capital. The next test is whether its partners can deliver a working plant on the timeline it has set.
Featured image: courtesy of Type One Energy
Disclosure: This article mentions a client of an Espacio portfolio company.
