Proxima Fusion raises €411M to build Europe's biggest fusion bet
Munich-based Proxima Fusion has raised €411 million ($468 million) in a round led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, valuing the startup at €2.4 billion. The financing makes Proxima the best-funded fusion company in Europe.
RWE and Google joined as strategic investors, with KfW Capital, SPRIND, and Burda Principal Investments alongside returning backers including Plural, UVC Partners , and Balderton. It is Google's first European fusion bet.
German energy company RWE invested months after agreeing to help Proxima build the first stellarator fusion plant on the site of a former nuclear fission plant in Gundremmingen, Bavaria.
The money funds Alpha, a €2 billion net-energy stellarator demonstrator near Munich. Proxima aims to complete it in the early 2030s, then build its first commercial plant in the mid-2030s.
A stellarator uses magnets to suspend hydrogen plasma, which is heated until its nuclei fuse — the same process that powers the sun. Proponents say fusion could deliver limitless clean energy.
In under three years, Proxima has secured more than €650 million, including €95 million in public grants. This round beat its target of matching Bavaria's €400 million public commitment, bringing Alpha's funding to €800 million.
Proxima still needs €1.2 billion more for Alpha and expects to seek it from Germany's federal government via a grant tendered later this year.
"Europe is racing with the United States and China to get to the first fusion power plant," said co-founder and chief executive officer Francesco Sciortino . He said investors "are backing us to develop a generational energy technology company."
Google has previously backed US builder Commonwealth Fusion and agreed to buy its future energy, saying it wants to "send a demand signal to the market for fusion energy."
The company will spend the funds on its Stellarator Model Coil, high-temperature superconducting magnet production, and hiring across its 200-person team in Munich, Zurich, and Oxford.
The round shows targeted public money can pull private capital into fusion at scale, and it hands Europe a heavily financed contender against a better-funded US cohort.
Read more: Proxima Fusion , Tech Funding News , Sifted
