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Ex-General Fusion employee raises $4 million USD for fusion diagnostics startup Daedal. Toronto-based firm provides plasma measurement systems for fusion companies. A former employee of General Fusion has started his own company to make a standardized component to support companies working to generate fusion power. The news: Toronto-based Daedal Systems has raised just over $4 million USD ($5.7 million CAD) to develop standardized plasma measurement systems for the nuclear fusion industry. The round was led by OMERS Ventures, with participation from Garage Capital, Panache Ventures, Ripple Ventures, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, and a group of angel investors. Fusion developers need detailed plasma measurements to understand how their reactor designs perform. That component is often designed in-house by the developers. By specializing in this one component, Daedal wants to free up resources for those companies to focus on developing their reactors. The fledgling company will use its fresh funding to build its first three reactor diagnostic systems and deploy the prototypes with pilot customers. From the source: "After building and deploying plasma measurement systems at General Fusion, I saw the same challenge across the sector: every company needs high-quality diagnostics, but too much time and capital go into recreating similar systems in-house," Daedal founder and CEO Henry Gould said in a statement. "Daedal was created to solve that problem...and help them move faster toward commercialization." The context: The global race for commercial fusion power - an as-of-now theoretical method of harnessing energy from reactions similar to those that power the sun - has captured players from around the globe, from national labs to private companies like General Fusion, where Gould worked in many different roles from 2018 to 2025. The technology, if proven commercially viable, promises abundant, fossil-fuel-free power. Daedal did not disclose who its pilot customers are, however, a spokesperson told BetaKit that the firm has signed memoranda of understanding with fusion companies like Toronto-based Stellarex Energy, Proxima Fusion, OpenStar Technologies, and Marathon Fusion. Final thought: Daedal, which has a research partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, claims its platform can adapt to different fusion machines and reactor approaches. While the company's initial focus is on the fusion industry, it said it has a longer-term ambition to become a major provider for other industries that require advanced measurement systems. Feature image courtesy Daedal Systems.

German fusion startup to build €140M superconducting tape plant. Proxima Fusion plans a €140M plant to make the superconducting tape its reactors depend on. Last updated: September 12, 2026 12:06 am Proxima Fusion will spend €140M ($162.6M) on a factory making fusion-grade high-temperature superconducting tape, the Munich company said, in a push to secure a component almost entirely sourced from Asia. The plan follows the startup's €411M raise earlier this year, which lifted it among Europe's best-funded fusion developers. Lower Saxony is contributing €21M, with the rest drawn from public and private sources. HTS tape generates the powerful magnetic fields that contain plasma inside a reactor. Proxima's demonstration plant will need 20,000 kilometres of the material, and a commercial power plant double that. The vast majority of HTS tape is produced in China and Japan, leaving European reactor designers exposed to supply and trade risk. Proxima argues that owning production gives it control over cost, quality and delivery schedules. The material only became commercially viable in the past ten to fifteen years, and it reshaped reactor economics. Machines that once depended on enormous low-temperature magnets could suddenly be built smaller, because the tape carries current without resistance at higher thermal thresholds. Demand is no longer confined to fusion. Companies such as Veir use the material to raise the power density of data centre connections, putting the technology in competition with the AI infrastructure boom for scarce capacity. Proxima has not said when the plant will start production. If it succeeds, Europe would gain its first domestic source of a material that currently shapes the fortunes of every fusion developer on the continent.

Proxima Fusion bets €140M on a critical fusion ingredient dominated by Asian suppliers. Proxima Fusion said Wednesday it plans to build a €140 million ($162.6 million) factory to produce fusion-grade high-temperature superconducting (HTS) Proxima Fusion is betting on a critical ingredient for its fusion reactors: superconducting tape. Proxima Fusion said Wednesday it plans to build a €140 million ($162.6 million) factory to produce fusion-grade high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape, which will provide the startup with key component to its reactor design. The move comes months after Proxima raised €411 million in a round that catapulted the company up the ranks of the best-funded fusion startups. The Germany-based fusion startup plans to use a mix of public and private funding to complete the factory, with the state of Lower Saxony chipping in €21 million. Proxima will use HTS tape to generate powerful magnetic fields to contain the plasma required to spark fusion reactions. The startup's demonstration plant will use 20,000 kilometers of HTS tape, while its commercial power plant will need twice as much. Today, the vast majority of HTS tape is made in China and Japan. HTS tape emerged a little over a decade ago as one of the fundamental breakthroughs that enabled the current generation of fusion power startups. Because it can generate strong magnetic fields at relatively high temperatures, HTS tape enables smaller and more efficient reactor designs. While fusion power is expected to consume a large portion of the world's HTS tape production, other companies like Veir are using it to boost the efficiency and power density of data centers.