Proxima Fusion, the scale-up specialising in the development of nuclear fusion technologies, has announced that it has closed a funding round worth 411 million euros (468 million dollars), bringing the company’s valuation to over 2.4 billion euros (over 2.7 billion dollars). The deal now places Proxima amongst the best-funded merger companies in the world, and the best-funded in Europe.
The funding round is led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with RWE and Google as strategic investors, and includes KfW Capital, SPRIND and Burda Principal Investments, alongside existing investors such as Plural, UVC Partners, Balderton, Cherry Ventures, DST Global Partners, Brevan Howard Macro Venture, Lightspeed, DTCF, redalpine, Leitmotif, Elaia, CDP Venture Capital, Bayern Kapital and the European Investment Council.
The German energy company RWE made the investment just a few months after signing an agreement with Proxima to collaborate on the construction of the first stellarator-based fusion power station, to be built on the site of the former fission nuclear power station in Gundremmingen, Bavaria.
Google’s investment confirms the ongoing interest in fusion as a potential source of abundant, carbon-free and long-term stable energy.
As one of the year’s largest private investments in European technology – and the largest in the fusion sector in Europe – this funding round reflects the growing recognition of fusion energy as a strategic technology for energy security, economic resilience and industrial competitiveness.
The funding provides the necessary support for the construction of Alpha, Proxima’s net-positive-energy stellarator demonstrator, near Munich in Germany. Alpha represents the crucial bridge between decades of fusion research and its commercial application. The project, led by Proxima in collaboration with the Free State of Bavaria, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and RWE, will validate key technologies by the end of the decade and accelerate the development of the world’s first fusion power station.
“Europe is racing against the United States and China to build the first fusion power station. The funding for Proxima demonstrates that Europe is not only capable of inventing disruptive technologies, but also of building globally competitive companies around them. Investors recognise both the urgency and the opportunity of what we are doing and are supporting us in developing a next-generation energy technology company,” says Francesco Sciortino, co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion (pictured here with the other co-founders, from left: Martin Kubie, Jonathan Schilling, Francesco Sciortino, Lucio Milanese, Jorrit Lion), in a statement.
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