Helical Fusion Co., Ltd., a fusion energy company developing a Helical stellarator power plant, today announced the launch of Helix Program Official Partners, a new strategic partnership framework designed to bring together long-term industrial collaborators committed to advancing fusion from laboratory progress to real-world fusion power deployment.
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Helical Fusion’s Integrated Demonstration Device, “Helix HARUKA,” currently under construction (photographed at the company’s dedicated workspace within the National Institute for Fusion Science in Gifu, Japan)
The Helix Program is Helical Fusion’s core initiative to realize commercially viable fusion energy in the 2030s. Rather than starting from a reactor concept alone, the program works backward from the three essential requirements for commercial fusion power: net electricity, continuous operation, and high maintainability. Based on this framework, Helical Fusion has adopted the Helical Stellarator as the reactor approach with the clearest pathway to achieving all three requirements in a fully operational fusion power plant, building on Japan’s decades-long research foundation in helical stellarator technology.
The first three companies to join as founding Official Partners are NICHIAS Corporation, Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., and Seno Kisen Co., Ltd. Each brings a business legacy spanning roughly a century or more. More importantly, they are joining not simply as suppliers or investors, but as long-term partners who share Helical Fusion’s ambition of helping build the fusion energy industry itself.
“Commercial fusion will not be realized by a startup alone, or by physics alone,” said Takaya Taguchi, Co-Founder and CEO of Helical Fusion Co., Ltd. “It requires a coalition of companies willing to apply the strengths they have built over generations to one of the most consequential industrial challenges of the next century. Helix Program Official Partners was created for that purpose.”
Unlike a conventional sponsorship program, Helix Program Official Partners is structured for companies that will work alongside Helical Fusion as active industrial collaborators. Participation is tied not only to strategic business alignment, but also to capital commitment. The framework is intended to support manufacturing and construction for Helix HARUKA, Helical Fusion’s Integrated Demonstration Device, and ultimately Helix KANATA, the company’s planned first commercial plant in the 2030s.
About Helix Program Official Partners
NICHIAS Corporation, founded in 1896, has supplied insulation, sealing, and high-performance industrial products to sectors that have underpinned modern industrial society, including shipbuilding, petroleum refining and petrochemicals, electric power, automobiles, construction, and semiconductors. Its participation reflects the view that the technologies required for large-scale industry in one era can become enabling technologies for a new energy system in the next.
Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., founded in 1887, has evolved through more than a century of manufacturing while building expertise in materials and textile-based technologies. Its decision to join points to a broader idea central to fusion commercialization: that advanced materials companies with deep manufacturing DNA may have an important role in shaping the infrastructure of future energy.
Seno Kisen Co., Ltd., founded in 1946 and built through decades of global maritime operations, brings expertise in industrial logistics, fleet management, and the movement of essential resources that sustain economies. Its participation underscores that future energy systems will not depend only on invention, but on the operational disciplines needed to move, deploy, and sustain large-scale assets in the real world.
The company is already advancing that roadmap in hardware. Manufacturing and construction are underway for magnet demonstration work for Helix HARUKA at a dedicated Helical Fusion workspace on the campus of the National Institute for Fusion Science in Toki, Gifu.
In connection with this broader push, Helical Fusion also completed the first close of its Series B round, raising approximately JPY 2.7 billion. Investors in the round include NICHIAS Corporation, Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., Seno Kisen Co., Ltd., Ecrowd NEXT, Konoike Transport Co., Ltd., and MITANI SANGYO Co., Ltd., among others. Among these investors, NICHIAS Corporation, Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., and Seno Kisen Co., Ltd. are also participating as the Helix Program Official Partners. Including grants and loans, the company’s total funding to date has reached approximately JPY 9.8 billion. The company said this additional capital will support continued development under the Helix Program alongside the expansion of its industrial partnership network.
About Helical Fusion Co., Ltd.
Helical Fusion Co., Ltd. is a company working to commercialize fusion energy through the development of the Helical Stellarator. The company was founded in 2021 as a spin-out from the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), leveraging research achievements accumulated at NIFS.
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