First Light Fusion raises £33m in funding

An Oxfordshire company which specialises in nuclear fusion, which produces no long-lived waste, has raised £33m in funding.

First Light Fusion, based in Yarnton, has completed its Series C fund raise drawing on funds from  both existing and new investors.

The IP Group, which committed £5m to the funding round and has a 27.4% stake in the company, announced the successful funding drive this morning.

The round was also supported by existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises (formerly OSI) and Hostplus as well as new investors Braavos Capital and Tencent.

First Light Fusion say their approach to fusion is safe, clean and could provide a virtually limitless source of energy.

In the past twelve months the Company has grown to 67 people and has expanded into larger premises to accommodate the staff and the new equipment.

Unlike existing nuclear, say First Light Fusion, there is no long-lived waste, no meltdown risk and raw materials can be found in abundance.

The new funding will be used to accelerate the development of First Light's "gain" experiment, whereby the amount of energy generated outstrips that used to spark the reaction, and to perform further design and engineering work on a 'first of a kind' commercial fusion energy power plant based on its technology.

Dr Nick Hawker, CEO of First Light Fusion, said: “I would like to thank our existing investors for their continued support and welcome our new investors to First Light.

"With their backing we are excited about the outlook for this year and have a series of ambitious targets. These include delivering a maiden fusion result, accelerating towards our next ‘gain’ experiment, while also increasing our work on the development of a full scale fusion power plant, with more detailed design and engineering work planned.

"We remain very confident in our technology, our people and the potential of our unique approach. We continue to believe our inertial confinement approach offers the fastest and above all, most cost competitive route to grid ready fusion energy.”