Proxima Fusion Raises €130 Million to Become European Nuclear Champion
(Bloomberg) -- Proxima Fusion, a German startup developing nuclear fusion technology, has raised €130 million ($148.8 million) from investors to develop a device capable of generating the futuristic energy by 2031.
The startup then plans to have its device operating inside a commercial power plant in the 2030s, the company said on Wednesday.
Proxima Fusion is one of a few companies working on fusion tech using superconducting magnets — powerful magnetic fields to contain the superhot gas, or plasma, that would fuse atoms together. The energy released in the process could be used to generate electricity.
Francesco Sciortino, Proxima Fusion’s chief executive, said the new funds will be used to make “the world’s most advanced magnet” and the first power plant using a stellarator, a twisted donut-shaped chamber that houses the plasma.
“Neither of those two things are particularly cheap,” he said.
The company is the latest nuclear fusion aspirant to rake in a large funding round from technology investors, who are convinced that the science will eventually turn into a profitable clean energy source. The argument is particular resonant in Europe, where governments have been striving for energy independence since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Marvel Fusion, another German nuclear fusion startup, which is taking an approach using lasers, raised €113 million from venture capital firms and the European Union in March.
Yet US rivals have brought in far more. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a Massachusetts-based firm using large magnets to develop fusion reactors, has raised more than $2 billion. That company has pledged to demonstrate a machine that produces net energy by 2027.
Proxima Fusion said it will demonstrate its magnet tech that same year.
Sciortino co-founded the company in 2023 as a spinout from the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. His company has received $35 million in government grants. But Sciortino said the state should step up its support for a “European champion” like his company, primarily since the continent doesn’t have enough private financing to back such efforts.
“It’s the moment for the German government to go big,” he said. “The company should feel like a European treasure.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has criticized the prior government’s decision, two years ago, to exit from nuclear energy. In a coalition treaty sealed earlier this spring, the two parties forming the German government agreed to spur research into fusion, and the country has pledged to build the world's first fusion reactor, without giving a timeline. Merz’s initial plan for cutting emissions by 2040 did not mention nuclear power.
With the new funding, Proxima Fusion has raised $165 million in equity to date. Its latest round was led by Cherry Ventures, a German investment fund, and Balderton Capital, which is based in London. Sciortino declined to share his company’s new valuation. By 2027, when the startup plans to show off its magnets to the public, Sciortino said it will need to raise more money.
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