The second matinee session on the second day of Global Corporate Venturing Symposium was moderated by Thierry Heles, editor of Global University Venturing.
The panel was made up of representatives from fusion power technology developers: Klaas de Boer, managing director at General Fusion; Nicholas Hawker and Jonathan Carling, CEOs of First Light Fusion and Tokamak Energy respectively; and Jim Wilkinson, chief financial officer of university venture fund Oxford Sciences Innovation.
Asked how useful milestones were, Hawker said: “Milestones are tangible and measurable so that is helpful,” stressing that while investors want you to do what you said you would, that may not be exactly the right result for the development of end product.
Carling added: “Fusion is very capital intensive. The more successful you are the more capital you get, and it makes fundraising very interesting.”
Heles then asked how fusion companies looked for talent and what challenges they encountered.
Carling said: “As the business gets bigger, the danger is turning into a corporation with many layers. Stronger people look at challenges rather than a pyramid structure.
“If it is a small team, you need to look for talent with energy and motivation.”
Hawker added that four years would be enough time for a team to work, saying: “We have hired some talent through recruiters but mostly through (our) network.”
Wilkinson concurred, saying: “My experience is also on a small scale. We value friendship, global ideas, bringing people from the US and Europe.”
Carling said Tokamak recruits talent internationally because engineering and science require special skills possessed by different people around the world.
“We have more than 20 nationalities on the team,” he said. “Work within your corporate culture, and you will have a much faster pace.”
Asked about the advantages and disadvantages of the private sector, Boer said that though technology moves quickly at a multinational institution, it often stalls in between stages.
“The agility and ability to take learning from experiments is impossible if you have to write grant papers and you have to approve a piece of work constantly,” he added.
Boer considers the nimbleness of the private sector preferable to the public sector, saying: “The Canadian government provides a work package, but it changes all the time and we renegotiate constantly.”
Carling said: “The competition in the private sector is also good. There is an ecosystem of businesses that are trying to achieve the same thing.
“The private enterprise applied to fusion will accelerate the pace of progress.”
However, Wilkinson said: “Governments should be underwriting these projects. It is not the easiest route but that is the most feasible.”
Because the fusion power business only produces results in two or three decades’ time, private investors are more reluctant to commit long term.
Boer added: “There are commonalities among us in shared needs. It would make sense to receive government funding and concentrate on where we differ in the ecosystem. If possible, we should take the commonalities further.”
