General Fusion weighs twin market debut

British Columbia fusion developer General Fusion is weighing a Toronto Stock Exchange listing alongside its planned Nasdaq debut, a move that would give Canadian investors a direct public-market route into one of the most closely watched private energy technologies.

Vancouver-headquartered General Fusion, backed over the years by investors linked to Jeff Bezos and Shopify founder Tobias Lütke, is preparing to go public through a business combination with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III. The transaction values the combined company at about US$1 billion and is expected to create one of the first publicly traded pure-play fusion energy companies, with the Nasdaq ticker GFUZ planned after completion.

A dual listing would add a domestic capital-markets dimension to a company that has long positioned itself as one of Canada’s flagship deep-technology ventures. The proposed Toronto listing would also come as fusion developers seek larger pools of patient capital to fund machines that remain technically complex, costly and years away from commercial power generation.

General Fusion’s technology differs from the large tokamak systems pursued by several rivals. The company is developing magnetised target fusion, a method that compresses plasma inside a liquid-metal cavity to create conditions needed for fusion reactions. Its LM26 demonstration programme in Richmond, British Columbia, is designed to show the temperature, density and confinement conditions required for deuterium-tritium fusion, a key step before any commercial plant can be built.

The company was founded in 2002 by physicist Michel Laberge and has spent more than two decades developing its approach. Its investor base has included Bezos Expeditions, Lütke’s Thistledown Capital, Business Development Bank of Canada, GIC, Segra Capital Management and PenderFund. Earlier financing rounds gave the company a high profile in the clean-energy sector, though the path to commercialisation has also been marked by funding pressure, staff reductions and the need for fresh capital.

The public-market push follows a difficult phase for the wider fusion industry. Private funding has expanded sharply as electricity demand rises from artificial intelligence, data centres, electrification and industrial decarbonisation, but investors have become more selective. Fusion companies raised billions of dollars across the sector last year, yet many still face a gap between laboratory milestones and bankable power projects.

General Fusion’s planned transaction includes more than US$100 million in committed private investment in public equity and access to Spring Valley’s trust capital, subject to redemptions and closing conditions. The proceeds are intended to support the LM26 programme and further engineering work as the company targets a first-of-a-kind power plant in the mid-2030s.

The company has also strengthened its governance ahead of the listing process. Thomas Boehlert, a veteran executive with capital-markets and public-company experience, was appointed to its board this month and named chair of the nominating and governance committee. The appointment signals an effort to prepare for the reporting, oversight and investor-relations demands that come with life as a listed company.

Fusion energy has attracted political, industrial and financial attention because it promises firm, low-carbon electricity without the long-lived radioactive waste associated with conventional nuclear fission. The reaction mimics the process that powers the sun, combining light atomic nuclei under extreme heat or pressure. Yet no private fusion company has produced electricity commercially, and the engineering challenges remain formidable.

A central hurdle is sustaining net energy output in a system that can operate reliably, economically and repeatedly. Developers must also solve problems around materials, neutron damage, tritium supply, maintenance, heat extraction and grid integration. Even optimistic commercial timelines generally place meaningful deployment in the 2030s, leaving investors to balance large potential returns against long development cycles.

Market estimates vary widely. Some projections place the fusion opportunity above US$1 trillion by 2050 if the technology captures a meaningful share of global power demand and builds a supply chain around reactors, components, fuel handling and services. More aggressive forecasts see a multi-trillion-dollar energy transition prize, while sceptics argue that cheaper renewables, storage, fission and grid upgrades may limit fusion’s role unless costs fall sharply.

General Fusion will enter a competitive field that includes Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Helion Energy, TAE Technologies, Type One Energy and several government-backed programmes. Commonwealth is pursuing a tokamak-based system and has announced plans for a grid-scale plant in Virginia in the early 2030s. Helion has targeted power delivery to Microsoft-linked demand before the end of this decade. TAE is pursuing a different fuel cycle and has attracted major technology and energy investors.