Proxima Fusion Funding News -German Startup Proxima Fusion Secures €130M In Series A Round

This brings the company’s total funding to over €185 million pushing forward its mission to build the world’s first commercial fusion power plant based on a stellarator design.

Spun out of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in 2023, Proxima is developing fusion power plants using QI-HTS stellarators.

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The company has brought together a top-tier team of scientists, engineers, and operators from renowned institutions and companies, including IPP, MIT, Harvard, SpaceX, Tesla, and McLaren.

Proxima uses a simulation-driven approach, combining advanced computing and high-temperature superconductors to build on the IPP’s successful W7-X stellarator research. This positions the company at the forefront of Europe’s clean energy transformation.

Its concept, Stellaris, is the first peer-reviewed stellarator design to integrate physics, engineering, and maintenance from the start. It has been recognized as a major milestone for the fusion industry and a strong case for quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarators as a leading path toward commercial fusion energy.

Francesco Sciortino, CEO and Co-founder of Proxima Fusion, said: "Fusion has become a real, strategic opportunity to shift global energy dependence from natural resources to technological leadership.

Proxima is perfectly positioned to harness that momentum by uniting a spectacular engineering and manufacturing team with world-leading research institutions, accelerating the path toward bringing the first European fusion power plant online in the next decade."

Cherry Ventures and Balderton Capital co-led Proxima Fusion’s Series A funding round, with strong support from UVC Partners, DeepTech & Climate Fonds (DTCF), Plural, Leitmotif, Lightspeed, Bayern Kapital, HTGF, Club degli Investitori, OMNES Capital, Elaia Partners, and Redalpine—which had also led the company’s seed round just a year earlier.

Fusion is increasingly seen by the EU and national governments—such as Germany, the UK, France, and Italy—as a transformative technology critical for energy independence, industrial growth, and achieving carbon-neutral economies.

By building on Europe’s strong foundation of public fusion investments and established industrial supply chains, Proxima Fusion is helping to shift the continent from being a leader in fusion research to becoming a global force in fusion energy deployment.

“We back founders solving humanity’s hardest problems — and few are bigger than clean, limitless energy," said Filip Dames, Cherry Ventures Founding Partner.”

Daniel Waterhouse, Partner at Balderton Capital, said: “Stellarators aren't just the most technologically viable approach to fusion energy — they're the power plants of the future, capable of leading Europe into a new era of clean energy.

Proxima has firmly secured its position as the leading European contender in the global race to commercial fusion.”

With the new funding, Proxima Fusion plans to complete its Stellarator Model Coil (SMC) by 2027—a key hardware milestone that will help de-risk high-temperature superconductor (HTS) technology for stellarators and drive HTS innovation across Europe.

The company will also finalise the location for Alpha, its demonstration stellarator, with discussions already underway with several European governments. Alpha is expected to start operations in 2031, aiming to achieve Q>1 (net energy gain)—a critical step toward building the first commercial fusion power plant.

Proxima Fusion will continue to expand its team of over 80 people, working across its three locations: headquarters in Munich, the Paul Scherrer Institute near Zurich, and the Culham Fusion Campus near Oxford.

About Proxima Fusion

Proxima Fusion is a European fusion energy company founded in 2023 in Munich, Germany, as the first spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. The company’s goal is to develop the first generation of fusion power plants based on quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarator technology.