• This strategic investment accelerates commercialization of fusion energy to provide the world with limitless sustainable power
  • CFS is on track to demonstrate net energy from fusion by 2025 and reach commercialization of fusion energy by the early 2030s
  • Investment continues JIMCO support of innovative breakthrough technologies that will positively shape the future of core industries driving the global economy

JIMCO Technology Fund, part of JIMCO, the Jameel Family’s global investment arm, participated with a major investment in Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) as it today announced closing its Series B funding round raising over US$ 1.8 billion to commercialize fusion energy.  

Since being founded in 2018, as a spinout from MIT, CFS has been developing High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets and is building the world’s first net-energy-gain fusion system.

“This groundbreaking HTS magnet was the culmination of three years of work that paved the way for commercial fusion energy,” said Bob Mumgaard, Chief Executive Officer, CFS.  

“The world is ready to make big investments in commercial fusion as a key part of the global energy transition.  This diverse group of investors includes a spectrum of capital from energy and technology companies to venture capitalists, hedge funds, and university endowments who believe in the impact fusion will have as we look for large scale solutions to decarbonize.  

We are delighted to include the participation and strategic investment by the Jameel Family, through the JIMCO Technology Fund which enables us to accelerate our commercialization path toward that day.”

CFS’ HTS magnet technology enables significantly stronger magnetic fields in a fusion device called a ‘tokamak’, existing versions of which rely on the scale of the device to attempt net energy.  HTS magnets support a high-field approach that will enable CFS to reach net energy from fusion with a substantially smaller, lower cost device and on a faster timeline.  This HTS magnet technology will be used in SPARC, now under construction in Devens, Massachusetts and on track to demonstrate net energy from fusion by 2025. 

SPARC will pave the way for the first commercially viable fusion power plant called ARC.  “This offers the fastest path to commercialization of clean fusion energy,” explains Mumgaard “we appreciate investment partners such as JIMCO who share a common view of a sustainable energy future and its role in mitigating climate change.”

Fady Jameel, a member of the Jameel Family’s Investment Supervisory Board strongly emphasized that:

It is critical that private investors cultivate close, collaborative relationships with research scientists and universities.  The Jameel Family has nurtured our relationships with MIT, and others, supporting innovative thinking and development of emergent technologies towards solutions aiming to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

“This investment in CFS is a step towards a more sustainable future for everyone demonstrating how ‘patient capital’, particularly from family investors, can show leadership in enabling transformational change by championing opportunities for business in the new green-tech economy.”

CFS’s path to commercial fusion energy:

  • 2018: Company founded based on decades of MIT fusion research supported by US$ 200 million in US DOE funding
  • 2020: Published a series of peer reviewed publications in Journal of Plasma Physics that verifies SPARC will achieve net energy from fusion (Q>10)
  • 2021: Started construction on fusion campus to host SPARC building, manufacturing facility, and company headquarters
  • 2021: In collaboration with MIT, built and successfully demonstrated groundbreaking high temperature superconducting magnets, the strongest of their kind and the key technology
  • 2025: SPARC achieves commercially relevant net energy from fusion
  • Early 2030s: First fusion power plant, called ARC, is completed

CFS has raised more than US$ 2 billion in funding since it was founded in 2018.

Fady Jameel, front left, with Bob Mumgaard, and Hassan Jameel (back left) and Sidhesh Kaul

Further participation by new investors included (alphabetically) Bill Gates, Coatue, DFJ Growth, Footprint Coalition, Fine Structure Ventures, Google Ventures, JS Capital, Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures, Senator Investment Group, Tiger Global Management, and a major university endowment together with current investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Engine, ENI Next, Equinor Ventures, Future Ventures, Hostplus, Khosla Ventures, Lowercarbon, Moore Strategic Ventures, Safar Partners, Schooner Capital, Soros Fund Management LLC, Starlight Ventures, Temasek, and others committed to the commercialization of fusion energy to mitigate climate change.

You can learn more about fusion energy in these videos: