2024-07-03 This article has been updated with links to the announcements of the equity investments to companies in China in the footnotes. Additionally, Footnote 1 now emphasizes that recipients of equity investments may be majority privately or publicly owned companies.
TL;DR: In 2023, equity investments to fusion companies in China exceeded those to fusion companies in all other countries combined.
Below is a graph of equity investments1 by year to companies pursuing fusion energy systems or fusion technologies (collectively "fusion companies") worldwide from 2010 through the end of 2023.2
Because equity investments are intended to last more than one year, the three- and five-year moving average lines are shown. Some initial observations:
- The spike in investments in 2021 is due to Commonwealth Fusion System's $1.8B Series B round and Helion Energy's $500M Series E round.
- The three and five-year moving averages continue to increase through 2023 highlighting the recent growth of fusion energy companies.
There is more to learn by breaking this graph down by the location of the fusion companies receiving the investment.3
A few more observations:
- Most investments (~70%) have gone to fusion companies in the United States.
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In 2022, equity investments to fusion companies in China exceeded those to fusion companies in all countries except the United States. In 2023, equity investments to fusion companies in China exceeded those to fusion companies in all other countries combined. Equity investments into fusion companies in China include $62M to Energy Singularity in 2022,4 $200M to ENN Energy Research Institute in each of 2022 and 2023,5 and $723M to Neo Fusion in 2023.6
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2023 saw equity investments going to fusion companies across the widest range of countries, including China, United States, Canada, France, Japan, Germany, Israel, and Sweden.
Non-dilutive funding to fusion companies, and grant funding to fusion energy research (typically from governments) are not shown in these graphs but will be the topic of a future post. Sign up to our mailing list below and follow Fusion Energy Base on X to stay informed of new articles.
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The source of these equity investments include organizations beyond private investment funds. They include sovereign wealth funds, state owned or affiliated investment funds, and governments themselves. Furthermore, the recipients of equity investments may be majority privately or publicly owned entities. ↩
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Data on equity investments come from press releases, publicly available reports, public SEC filings, and directly from companies themselves. These numbers are likely an underestimate of the actual values as some investments are never disclosed and some are announced long after the investments are made. ↩
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Some fusion companies are multinational corporations and are developing facilities in multiple countries so assigning an investment to a single country is not straightforward. In these cases we ascribe the investment to the country in which the holding company is registered. ↩
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Panda Daily sourced from Baidu ↩
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Fusion Industry Association Fusion Companies Survey 2022 and Fusion Industry Association Fusion Companies Survey 2023 ↩
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Reuters. This press release is the sole source of information regarding this investment. ↩