With 411 million euros, PROXIMA FUSION brings European nuclear fusion into the industrial era

For decades, nuclear fusion remained a scientific horizon. Records were set in laboratories, funding came mainly from states and commercial promises always seemed to be postponed by a decade. The fundraising of 411 million euros carried out by the German Proxima Fusion changes the nature of the debate.

In terms of its amount, first of all, the operation values ​​the company at 2.4 billion euros and constitutes the largest private financing ever carried out in mergers in Europe. But above all by the investors it brings together, alongside the XTX Ventures and East X Ventures funds now include RWE, the leading German electricity producer, and Google, whose energy needs are exploding with the development of artificial intelligence.

Europe finally agrees to finance infrastructure even before their market

A spin-off of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the company went from 7 million euros in pre-seed in 2023, to 20 million in Seed in 2024, then 130 million in Series A in 2025, before this raising of 411 million euros. In less than three years, it has secured more than 650 million euros, to which can be added 95 million euros in public funding.

This progression reflects a major rupture in the way in which European capital approaches disruptive technologies.

Until recently, rounds exceeding a few hundred million euros mainly concerned software, digital platforms or artificial intelligence. Fusion belongs to a radically different category. Investments precede by several years, even a decade, any prospect of significant income. Scientific risks remain high and capital requirements are comparable to those of heavy industrial infrastructure.

European venture capital is starting to adopt logics that until now have been part of major industrial programs.

The merger becomes a matter of sovereignty

Since the energy crisis of 2022, security of supply has again become a strategic objective of European industrial policies. At the same time, the rise of artificial intelligence is causing an explosion in the electrical needs of data centers. According to projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data center power consumption is expected to almost double to 950 TWh in 2030, a level comparable to Japan’s current annual consumption. Artificial intelligence is the main driver of this growth.

From this perspective, fusion ceases to be solely a scientific project, and becomes a technology capable of sustainably supporting future European electricity needs.

Why Google and RWE are investing today

The simultaneous arrival of a historic energy company and a digital giant is the strong signal of this operation. For RWE, the interest is obvious. The group is already participating with Proxima Fusion and the Land of Bavaria in the development of a first commercial power plant on the site of its former nuclear power plant in Gundremmingen. The investment constitutes a strategic option on a technology capable of producing controllable electricity, without carbon emissions and with extremely low fuel consumption.

For Google, the logic is different but just as rational: artificial intelligence infrastructures require a continuous power supply. Hyperscalers are already investing heavily in power grids, small nuclear reactors and renewable energy to secure their supply. The entry into the capital of Proxima marks the group’s first European investment in a fusion company and is part of a global strategy of diversification of energy technologies likely to power future computing centers.

The real challenge is no longer physics but industrialization

Contrary to what this fundraising might suggest, the 411 million euros will not only finance the construction of the Alpha demonstrator. A significant part of the investments will be devoted to the industrialization of key technologies: manufacturing of high temperature superconducting (HTS) coils and cables, increasing magnet production capacity, development of industrial processes and engineering systems necessary for the assembly of future stellarators. In other words, Proxima no longer only seeks to demonstrate that a fusion reactor can work; the company is building the industrial chain essential for its large-scale production. A logic already observed in semiconductors or batteries, where mastery of manufacturing processes often constitutes a competitive advantage as decisive as scientific innovation itself.

The stellarator bet

Proxima has also chosen a technological path less taken than the majority of its competitors, while most private companies are developing tokamaks, the German company is banking on a stellarator, a magnetic confinement architecture historically known to be much more complex to design but potentially more stable for continuous industrial operation.

Its approach is based directly on the results of the Wendelstein 7-X program, developed over several decades by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

The Alpha demonstrator, which is targeted for commissioning in the early 2030s, will have to demonstrate that a stellarator can produce a positive energy balance. If this step is reached, Proxima then aims to build Stellaris, presented as the first commercial power station using this architecture before the end of the 2030s.

A startup that already resembles an industrial prime contractor

Around the Alpha project, the company brings together more than 50 industrial partnersthe Bavarian government, the Max Planck Institute and RWE. This organization is more reminiscent of major aeronautics or space programs than the classic venture capital ecosystem.

The startup retains technological control and the general architecture while the manufacturers gradually develop the different building blocks necessary for the future power plant.

This model has several qualities: it reduces technical risks, accelerates the increase in industrial capacity and makes it possible to involve future operators very early.

A new generation of European DeepTech

Since the start of the year, the largest European operations have increasingly concerned physical infrastructure: photonics, robotics, semiconductors, advanced materials or quantum technologies. European DeepTech no longer only seeks to produce scientific innovations. It now aims to rebuild industrial capacities on the continent.

In this landscape, fusion could become one of the next structuring sectors.

There are still many scientific and technological hurdles before a commercial power plant injects its first megawatts onto the grid. But one thing now appears certain: global competition is played out in the capacity to finance complete industrial chains, to mobilize energy companies, industrialists and investors, then to transform a scientific discovery into strategic infrastructure.

Proxima Fusion was created in 2020 by Francesco Sciortino, a fusion physicist and former researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, alongside Roger Jäggi, Maximilian Fichtl and Luca Schwarz. Since its creation, the company has surrounded itself with engineers, specialists in superconductors, plasma physics, digital simulation and industrial systems, notably from the Max Planck Institute, CERN, the energy and aerospace industries. The company now employs more than a hundred employees and plans to quickly strengthen its teams in the areas of engineering, manufacturing and operations in order to accelerate the development of the Alpha demonstrator and prepare the future industrial capacities necessary for the commercialization of its fusion power plants.