There is a nice writeup of the wendelstein 7-X. https://www.iter.org/doc/www/content/com/Lists/Stories/Attachments/680/ITER_W7X.pdf https://www.iter.org/doc/ww

There is a nice writeup of the wendelstein 7-X. https://www.iter.org/doc/www/content/com/Lists/Stories/Attachments/680/ITER_W7X.pdf https://www.iter.org/doc/www/content/com/Lists/Stories/Attac... Their conclusion: The technology was challenging and exaberated risks. But most problems were rather generic for a project of this size. Also the thechnology problems were novelty and tolerances. Neither of which SPARC alleviates. Lastly founding: Wendelstein started with an estimate of 500 million euro and doubled to 1 billion euro(I count only doubling the cost as an success for a project of this size). ITER is currently at 20 billion euro for construction and 5 billion for operation. The 75 million dollars are cute. Even if the management team is very competent, they need probably a hundred times that. I am aware that the 75 million are just the seed money but still. Also Wendelstein was 8 years over time (measured by target completion date at project beginn.) So when the startup says fusion energy in mid 2020ties I hear fusion energy in mid 2030 ties. Or they don't survive because they can't secure founding in a phase where the startup hype has left and maybe even a recession hits.