General Fusion boasts backing from Shopify, Amazon founders

January 15, 2021, 9:36AMANS Nuclear Cafe

Shopify founder Tobias Lütke is backing General Fusion with an undisclosed capital investment through his Thistledown Capital investment firm, the Canadian fusion technology firm announced January 14.

In an article published the same day by TechCrunch, Jonathan Shieber noted that a separate investments by Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon, first made through his venture capital fund nearly a decade ago, means General Fusion “has the founders of the two biggest e-commerce companies in the Western world on its cap table.”

The technology: According to General Fusion, the investment will support the development of the company’s demonstration plant, which “will showcase magnetized target fusion technology at power-plant-relevant scale.” Magnetized target fusion represents a middle ground between magnetic confinement fusion and inertial confinement fusion. According to General Fusion, the company’s technology would use steam-powered pistons to compress plasma to fusion conditions.

“General Fusion has a strong record of attracting funding support from some of the world’s most influential technology leaders,” said Greg Twinney, chief financial officer of General Fusion.


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