General Fusion to go public in US via $1 billion SPAC deal

By Dharna Bafna

Jan 22 (Reuters) - Nuclear ⁠energy startup General ⁠Fusion ‍said on Thursday it will go public in the U.S. in a deal of about $1 billion with blank-check ‍company Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III, as demand grows for ​cleaner power.

The deal includes $105 million from a committed, oversubscribed private investment in public ​equity and about $230 million of SVAC III's cash held in trust, General Fusion said.

General Fusion said it expects the merger to close by mid-2026 and to list ​on Nasdaq under the ticker "GFUZ."

The Canadian company is developing magnetized target fusion, an experimental approach aimed at replicating the process that ​powers the sun.

Unlike conventional nuclear fission, fusion has not yet been proven in commercially viable ‌power plants, and General Fusion has not built a commercial reactor that produces net energy.

The company expects to ​build a first-of-a-kind power plant by the ⁠mid-2030s.

The listing comes as nuclear power has been gaining renewed attention in the U.S. after decades of ‌stagnation, driven by surging electricity demand from AI data centers and broader electrification in sectors such as transportation and manufacturing.

Proceeds from the transaction will be ‌used to advance development of its magnetized target fusion system, the company said.

"The ‌demand for energy is massive … AI, data centers, and existing technologies are not going to cut it," Chief Executive Greg Twinney told Reuters in an interview.

The ‍company is working with prospective customers "to make sure that what we're building is something that they can ⁠use, build, finance, and operate in the future," he added.

The company counts Bloom Energy, Sam Altman-backed Oklo, NuScale, Centrus and Nano Nuclear Energy as its peers, though none are pure-play fusion companies.

(Reporting by Dharna Bafna in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

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