Nuclear fusion, a private enterprise with a valuation of tens of billions has emerged

The financing momentum in the nuclear fusion sector continues unabated.

According to incomplete statistics from reporters at the Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily, since June alone, eight fusion-focused enterprises have completed full financing rounds, including Enn Fusion, Zeta Fusion, Stellar Nuclear Fusion, SuperMag New Energy, Beta Fusion, among others.

Financing-related records are constantly being broken: Enn Fusion's valuation has exceeded 10 billion yuan, making it the privately-owned enterprise with the highest valuation in China's fusion sector; Stellar Nuclear Fusion has set a new domestic record for the largest Series A financing scale for private nuclear fusion enterprises with its 830 million yuan first-round funding.

It is evident that as capital continues to pour into the nuclear fusion field, investment granularity is becoming finer. Investors are shifting from broad bets on the nuclear fusion concept to tiered investments across segments including device pathways, fuel routes, critical components, simulation platforms, and control systems. The participating investors are also more diverse, expanding from early-stage hard technology funds to state-owned platforms and industrial capital.

Financing Records Are Continuously Being Surpassed

The latest financing update comes from Beijing Enn Fusion Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Enn Fusion"). The company announced the completion of its Pre-A round financing, which marks its first external funding round, led by Loongson Venture Capital, co-led by CAS Star and Matrix Partners China, with participation from CDH Investments, SAIC Hengxu Capital, and Yizhuang Industrial Investment, among others.

Following this financing round, Enn Fusion's post-money valuation reached 10.6 billion yuan, making it the privately-owned enterprise with the highest publicly recorded valuation in China's fusion sector to date.

Enn Fusion is a subsidiary of Enn Group, a leading clean energy enterprise, dedicated exclusively to the commercialization of proton-boron fusion. Currently, the aforementioned financing has not yet been updated in the industrial and commercial registration system, and public business information still shows that Enn Fusion's major shareholders are Enn Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Langfang Kecu Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership (Limited Partnership), with the former holding 88% of the company's equity.

According to Enn Fusion's statement, the funds from this round of financing will be used for the construction and commissioning of the company's third-generation spherical torus proton-boron fusion device "Helong-2", with the goal of completing the device's construction by the end of 2027 and achieving first plasma ignition in 2030.

From the perspective of industrial chain segments, Enn Fusion is positioned in the midstream of the fusion industrial chain, operating as a fusion device developer. Across the broader industry, most enterprises in the device segment currently adopt the deuterium-tritium fusion pathway, while Enn Fusion has chosen proton-boron fusion. The advantages of this differentiated pathway lie in relatively abundant fuel sources, almost no high-energy neutrons produced during the reaction process, which theoretically reduces material activation, radioactive waste, and subsequent decommissioning costs, with the potential to improve power generation efficiency through direct energy conversion. However, proton-boron fusion also presents greater challenges, primarily because it requires far higher temperatures than deuterium-tritium fusion, while facing issues such as radiation losses.

Hefei Stellar Nuclear Fusion Energy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Stellar Nuclear Fusion") has also announced a record-breaking achievement. Established in November 2025, the company announced two weeks ago that it had completed its first-round financing at a scale of 830 million yuan, setting a new domestic record for the largest initial funding round for private nuclear fusion enterprises, with a post-money valuation of 3 billion yuan.

Stellar Nuclear Fusion can be regarded as a representative of another differentiated pathway in the device segment, but unlike Enn Fusion, its differentiation does not lie in the fuel route, but primarily in the confinement device pathway. Stellar Nuclear Fusion is betting on the "high-temperature superconductor + advanced quasi-axisymmetric (QI)" stellarator route, which differs from the tokamak, spherical tokamak, or Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) pathways adopted by many domestic device enterprises.

As introduced, the stellarator primarily confines plasma through complex magnetic fields generated by external 3D coils, making it theoretically more suitable for long-duration steady-state operation, and is recognized as an important technical pathway for the continuous and stable operation of future fusion power plants. However, the stellarator's challenges appear earlier in the development process, mainly concentrated in complex magnetic field design, high-precision special-shaped superconducting magnet manufacturing, assembly accuracy, and system integration segments.

Judging from financing trends, the capital pouring into the nuclear fusion sector is no longer limited to seeking projects across different segments of the fusion industrial chain, but is further screening enterprises with differentiated pathways and engineering milestones in each segment. A simple description of "financing boom" can no longer accurately summarize the characteristics of the nuclear fusion industry at its current development stage. The current flow of capital may indicate that the industry is gradually entering a new phase of technical pathway differentiation and tiered pricing across the industrial chain.

Diverse Investors Bet on the Future Industry

In addition to changes in investor investment trends, the composition of investors pouring into the fusion sector itself is also evolving.

Reporters from the Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily have noticed that there is significant overlap between the investors backing Stellar Nuclear Fusion and those supporting Enn Fusion: SAIC Hengxu Capital and CAS Star, which led the investment in Stellar Nuclear Fusion, also appear on Enn Fusion's investor list; Loongson Venture Capital and Legend Star are simultaneously external institutional shareholders of both companies.

Among them, Loongson Venture Capital is an industrial venture capital platform under Loongson Technology, a listed company on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board. Its corresponding industrial and commercial entity, Loongson (Shenzhen) Private Equity Venture Capital Fund Management Co., Ltd., has Loongson Technology as its second-largest shareholder, holding a 15.3% stake of 15.3%.

In the nuclear fusion sector, reporters from the Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily have noted that besides the two aforementioned enterprises, Loongson Venture Capital has also invested in multiple enterprises across different segments of the industrial chain, including Dongsheng Fusion (fusion device developer), Shunyuan Technology (fusion simulation platform), and Xihe Intelligent Control (fusion reactor real-time control system vendor).

CAS Star has long been active in the nuclear fusion investment sector. Among the earliest batch of domestic nuclear fusion startups such as StarFusion Energy, CAS Star has been present as a core early-stage investor.

Apart from industrial capital and financial investment institutions, local state-owned assets are also strongly supporting this future-oriented industry.

In January this year, StarFusion Energy's 1 billion yuan Series A financing saw deep participation from Shanghai's state-owned capital system: Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Group and Shanghai Future Industry Fund under Shanghai State-owned Capital Operation and Investment Co., Ltd. led the round, while the Intellectual Property Fund under Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Group, which led StarFusion Energy's Pre-A round, continued to participate as a follow-on investor. With the closing of the Series A financing, StarFusion Energy also announced that its new project will be located in Shanghai. In addition, Shanghai's state-owned capital system has also invested in fusion-sector enterprises including Stellar Light Energy, Dongsheng Fusion, and Yixi Technology this year. Another major player betting heavily on the nuclear fusion sector is Anhui's local state-owned capital. Hefei Innovation Investment and Hefei High-Tech Investment appear in Stellar Nuclear Fusion's investor lineup. Moreover, Fusion New Energy, the sole technology transfer platform for the magnetic confinement nuclear fusion field under the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has pooled multiple local Anhui state-owned entities, including Hefei Industrial Investment and Anhui Provincial Science and Technology Innovation Investment.

As capital continues to pour in and the commercialization process advances, the overall popularity of the nuclear fusion industry is rising, attracting an increasing influx of talent.

Reporters from the Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily previously learned during interviews that over the past year, the number of newly emerging entrepreneurial teams in the nuclear fusion sector has significantly increased, with technical and engineering talents from scientific research institutes, energy enterprises, and hard technology companies shifting to this emerging track.

Another industry insider told the Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily that as sectors such as semiconductors enter a relatively mature industrial cycle, some capital and talents are searching for the next earlier-stage growth direction, and nuclear fusion is one of them.

However, multiple industry practitioners have also cautioned that despite the current high enthusiasm surrounding nuclear fusion, the industry remains in a relatively early stage. Most enterprises are still advancing the construction of experimental devices, verification of key technologies, and accumulation of engineering capabilities, with technical pathways not yet fully converged, and business models requiring time to validate.

In other words, the influx of capital and talents is accelerating industry development, but nuclear fusion still needs to overcome multiple hurdles before achieving stable power generation and large-scale commercial implementation.

This article originates from the WeChat Official Account "Venture Capital Daily", authored by Yang Xiaoxiao, and published with authorization from 36Kr.