Global Courant 2023-05-30 10:59:20
TOKYO – Kyoto Fusioneering is raising a lot of new money from domestic venture capital funds, banks and energy, engineering and trading companies, the latest indication that nuclear fusion energy companies can increasingly invest in Japan.
On May 17, Kyoto Fusioneering announced that its 10.5 billion yen (US$75 million) Series C funding round was oversubscribed, a repeat of its Series B fundraising in February 2022.
The country’s most prominent nuclear fusion technology developer has now raised 12.2 billion yen ($87 million) since it was split from Kyoto University in October 2019.
Kyoto Fusioneering management says it plans to use the new capital to hire more engineers, accelerate development of fusion reactor materials and key components, develop the power plant’s technical capabilities and continue expansion in the UK and US to put.
Even before the new capital injection, the company has already benefited from the expertise of its corporate investors and the development of new technologies that could give it an early head start in what is expected to be a very large and highly competitive global merger market.
INPEX, Japan’s largest oil and gas exploration and production company, said it invested in Kyoto Fusioneering because it was “the first initiative deemed to have commercial potential” under the INPEX Challenge Program, an in-house venture capital program established in 2021.
Read: “Japan Boldly Unleashes A National Fusion Revolution”
“Through this investment, INPEX will explore opportunities to provide fusion power by supporting the technological and operational development of Kyoto Fusioneering, while the knowledge is cultivated by its own energy development company.”
In a transition away from fossil fuels, INPEX conducts R&D in carbon capture, storage and recycling, hydrogen and ammonia, wind and geothermal energy, and now nuclear fusion.
The company’s ownership structure reflects the close relationship between corporate and official Japan. INPEX is 21.2% owned by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and 4.1% by Japan Petroleum Exploration (JAPEX), which in turn is 34.9% owned by METI and 4.1% owned by METI. 5.1% of INPEX.
Helical Fusion, another local start-up looking to build a commercial spiral fusion reactor, has reportedly raised funding from telecom provider KDDI’s Green Partners Fund, the Nikon-SBI Innovation Fund and SBI Investment, which also wants to build a spiral fusion reactor.
The funds raised in April this year and November last year will be used by Helical Fusion to fund the continued development of a spiral fusion reactor, superconducting magnets and other related technologies.
Helical reactors are helical and are a type of stellarator that traps plasma using magnetic fields. The technology is considered particularly suitable for commercial reactors due to its stable operation.
Helical Fusion is aiming for a helical type fusion reactor. Image: Japanese National Institute of Fusion
Headquartered in Tokyo, Helical Fusion was founded in 2021 with technology developed by Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science. It has so far received approximately $6 million in seed funding from Japanese venture capital and corporate investors.
Helical Fusion’s R&D is led by co-CEO Junichi Miyazawa, a nuclear physicist from the Graduate School of Engineering at Nagoya University; Board member Takaya Goto, a specialist in fusion reactor system design and a professor at the National Institute for Fusion Science; and science consultant Akio Sagara, a nuclear engineer and professor emeritus at Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science.
EX-Fusion, yet another fusion startup founded in 2021 and headquartered in Osaka, is venturing into commercializing laser-based nuclear fusion. It reports that it raised 261 million yen ($1.9 million) in 2022 from a Tokyo-based venture capital firm and Osaka University Venture Capital.
The company was founded by Shinsuke Fujioka of Osaka University’s Institute of Laser Engineering; Kazuki Matsuo, a laser fusion and high energy density plasma specialist from Osaka University’s Graduate School of Science; and Yoshitaka Mori, an associate professor at the Graduate School for the Creation of New Photonics Industries (GSCNPI) in the Japanese city of Hamamatsu.
Through GSCNPI, EX-Fusion has introduced laser technology from Hamamatsu Photonics, a locally based company that currently makes the world’s most powerful semiconductor lasers. Hamamatsu Photonics is developing a pulsed laser with the energy and repetition rate required for nuclear fusion.
In April, METI Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura visited GSCNPI, EX-Fusion’s R&D facility located there, and Hamamatsu Photonics, the driving force behind the establishment of the school.
EX-Fusion has also joined the Institute of Laser Engineering, University of Adelaide, Australian laser fusion company HB11 and other companies in a high intensity laser project in Australia.
A laser fusion experiment. Photo: US Department of Energy
Kyoto Fusioneering’s Series C financing underlined the increasing investability of Japanese fusion companies and attracted a broad and deep range of Japanese investors, including:
JIC Venture Growth Investments Co., Ltd. Coral Capital DBJ Capital Co., Ltd. (Development Bank of Japan) Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER) INPEX Corporation JAFCO Group Co., Ltd. Japan Co-Invest IV Limited Partnership Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment Co. Ltd JGC MIRAI Innovation Fund / General Partner Global Brain Corporation K4 Ventures GK（Kansai Electric Power Group） Mitsubishi Corporation Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd. Mitsui & Co., Ltd. MOL PLUS Co. Ltd. MUFG Bank, Ltd. SMBC Venture Capital
Among them, JGC is Japan’s largest plant engineering, procurement and construction company. Mitsubishi Corporation is the largest general trading company. MOL PLUS is the corporate venture capital fund of shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines.
For more information on the origins, technology and business of Kyoto Fusioneering, see my February 2022 article in Global Courant.
Follow this writer on Twitter: @ScottFo83517667
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