Judging by your comments and one other above—this fusion team is following and teasing out an old line nuclear fusion R&D as well as current practices.
The best 4th gen smr’s are lftr reactors. they began to developed 10 years ago when Alvin Weinberg’s work was rediscovered.
So reasoning by analogy—which is by definition— weak— I would say that this new fusion process has at least as good a chance of being successful as any of the of the other fusion reactors being developed.
For people/orgs for whom 5 mil is pocket change— this sort of thing is a gift horse.
I am no scientist but according to elon musk — reasoning from first principles lays a better foundation than reasoning by analogy.
You did not reason from first principles but rather implied that the people who were running the new fusion reactor showed all the signs of people reasoning from first principles. Their work showed signs that it is built on the work of people who have come before—rather than being just a scam.