Fusion power plant: Series A over € 130 million for Proxima Fusion

Munich — Proxima Fusion, the fastest growing fusion energy company in Europe, announ­ced the closing of a €130 million ($150 million) Series A finan­cing round. This is the largest private invest­ment round in the fusion energy sector in Europe. The Series A finan­cing round was co-led by Cherry Ventures and Balder­ton Capi­tal, with parti­ci­pa­tion from UVC Part­ners, the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF), Plural, Leit­mo­tif, Lightspeed and Bayern Kapital. 

Redal­pine, which led the seed finan­cing, as well as Club degli Inves­ti­tori, Omnes Capi­tal, Visio­na­ries Tomor­row, Wilbe and Elaia Part­ners also parti­ci­pa­ted in this round.

Proxima Fusion now has a total of more than 185 million euros (200 million dollars) in public and private funding and can conti­nue its mission to build the worl­d’s first commer­cial fusion power plant based on a stel­la­ra­tor design.

Fran­cesco Sciort­ino (photo © Proxima), CEO and co-foun­­der of Proxima Fusion, said: “The merger marks a turning point: it allows us to replace the previous depen­dence on natu­ral resour­ces with a stron­ger focus on tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader­ship, opening up new growth and compe­ti­tive poten­tial. Proxima is perfectly posi­tio­ned to capi­ta­lize on this momen­tum: We are brin­ging toge­ther a spec­ta­cu­lar engi­nee­ring and manu­fac­tu­ring team with world-leading rese­arch faci­li­ties to acce­le­rate the path to Euro­pe’s first fusion power plant in the next decade.”

Shif­ting global energy dependence

Proxima was foun­ded in early 2023 as a spin-out of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics (IPP), with which it is working closely in a public-private part­ner­ship to lead Europe into a new era of clean energy. The EU and natio­nal govern­ments, inclu­ding Germany, the UK, France and Italy, are incre­asingly reco­gni­zing fusion as a stra­te­gic, timely tech­no­logy that is essen­tial for energy sove­reig­nty, indus­trial compe­ti­ti­ve­ness and carbon-neutral econo­mic growth. 

Proxima builds on Euro­pe’s long-stan­­ding public invest­ment in fusion and rela­ted indus­trial supply chains. In doing so, the company is laying the foun­da­ti­ons for a new high-tech energy indus­try that will trans­form the Euro­pean conti­nent from a pioneer in fusion rese­arch to a global force in fusion technology. 

“We support foun­ders who are tack­ling huma­ni­ty’s toug­hest problems — and few are bigger than the need for clean, unli­mi­ted energy,” said Filip Dames, foun­ding part­ner of Cherry Ventures. “Proxima Fusion combi­nes Euro­pe’s scien­ti­fic edge with commer­cial ambi­tion. This is deep tech at its best and a clear signal that Europe can be a leader on the world stage.” 

Proxima is pursuing a simu­la­­tion-driven tech­no­lo­gi­cal approach that uses advan­ced compu­ter tech­no­logy and high-tempe­ra­­ture super­con­duc­ti­vity (HTS) tech­no­logy to build on the ground­brea­king results
of IPP’s Wendel­stein 7‑X (W7‑X) expe­ri­ment. Earlier this year, Proxima presen­ted Stel­la­ris toge­ther with IPP, the Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy (KIT) and other part­ners. As the first stel­la­ra­tor concept to be peer-reviewed by
world-renow­­ned experts, taking into account physi­cal, tech­ni­cal and main­ten­ance aspects from the outset, Stel­la­ris is widely regarded as a major breakth­rough for the fusion indus­try and under­pins the posi­tion of quasi-isody­na­­mic stel­la­ra­tors as the most promi­sing route to a commer­cial fusion power plant. 

Daniel Water­house, Part­ner at Balder­ton Capi­tal, said: “Stel­la­ra­tors are not just the most tech­no­lo­gi­cally viable approach to fusion power — they are the power plants of the future that can lead Europe into a new era of clean energy. Proxima has firmly secu­red its posi­tion as the leading Euro­pean conten­der in the global race for commer­cial fusion. We are deligh­ted to be working with Proxi­ma’s pionee­ring engi­nee­ring team and Euro­pe’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers to build a company that will trans­form Europe.” 

With the new funding, the company will complete its model stel­la­ra­tor coil by 2027, which will make HTS tech­no­logy relia­bly usable for stel­la­ra­tors and signi­fi­cantly advance Euro­pean HTS inno­va­tion. Proxima will also fina­lize a site for Alpha, its demons­tra­tion stel­la­ra­tor, for which discus­sions are alre­ady under­way with seve­ral Euro­pean govern­ments. Alpha is sche­du­led to be opera­tio­nal in 2031 and will demons­trate Q>1 (net energy gain): An important step on the way to a first fusion power plant. The company will conti­nue to expand its team of more than 80 people at its three bran­ches: At its head­quar­ters in Munich, at the Paul Scher­rer Insti­tute (PSI) near Zurich and at the Culham Fusion Campus near Oxford (UK).

“Fusion energy is ente­ring a new era, making the leap from labo­ra­tory to indus­try,” said Dr. Fran­cesco Sciort­ino. “The new funding vali­da­tes our approach and gives us the resour­ces to deli­ver the hard­ware essen­tial to make clean fusion energy a reality.” Ian Hogarth, Part­ner at Plural, said: “Proxima Fusion exem­pli­fies a new kind of Euro­pean ambi­tion — the deter­mi­ned commit­ment of all forces to the deve­lo­p­ment of the worl­d’s first fusion power plant. Since the first round of funding two years ago, Fran­cesco and his team have achie­ved extre­mely chal­len­ging mile­sto­nes ahead of sche­dule, assembling a team of experts in plasma physics, advan­ced magnet design and compu­ter simu­la­tion. Their peer-reviewed concept for a stel­la­ra­tor power plant proves that fusion can indeed be commer­ci­ally viable and gives Europe the chance to be the first to get there.” 

About Proxima Fusion

Proxima Fusion was spun out of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics in 2023 to build the first gene­ra­tion of fusion power plants using QI-HTS stel­la­ra­tors. Proxima has since assem­bled a world-class team of scien­tists and engi­neers from leading compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons, inclu­ding IPP, MIT, Harvard, SpaceX, Tesla and McLaren. 

Through a simu­la­­tion-driven approach to engi­nee­ring that uses advan­ced compu­ting and high-tempe­ra­­ture super­con­duc­tors to build on the ground­brea­king results of IPP’s W7‑X experiment,
Proxima is leading Europe into a new era of clean energy, forever.

www.proximafusion.com