Proxima Fusion Raises €411 Mn in Round led by XTX Ventures

The funding round was led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with RWE and Google joining as strategic investors. New investors such as KfW Capital, SPRIND, and Burda Principal Investments also participated, along with several existing investors.

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German energy company RWE invested in Proxima Fusion a few months after signing a partnership to build the first stellarator fusion power plant at the site of a former nuclear power plant in Gundremmingen, Bavaria.

Google's investment shows its strong interest in fusion energy as a clean and reliable power source for the future. This funding round is one of the largest private technology investments in Europe this year and the biggest ever for a European fusion company highlighting the growing importance of fusion for energy security and long-term economic growth.

“Europe is racing with the United States and China to get to the first fusion power plant. Proxima’s financing demonstrates that Europe can not only invent breakthrough technologies, but also build globally competitive companies around them. Investors recognise both the urgency and the opportunity of what we're doing and are backing us to develop a generational energy technology company," said Dr. Francesco Sciortino, Co-Founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion.

Proxima Fusion is Europe's leading stellarator fusion company and the first startup created from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. The company is working to develop commercial fusion power plants.

Its technology is based on the QI-HTS stellarator design and builds on research from the Wendelstein 7-X project. Proxima is developing Alpha, a fusion demonstration project that aims to produce more energy than it uses in the early 2030s.

The company also plans to build Stellaris, the world's first commercial stellarator fusion power plant, later in the 2030s. Proxima is supported by the Alpha Alliance, which includes more than 50 industrial partners. Headquartered in Munich, with offices in Zurich and Oxford, the company employs around 200 people in engineering, science, and operations.