Proxima Fusion, a Munich, Germany-based group that is considered among the leading European companies working on fusion energy, said it completed a €411 million ($468 million) funding round.
Proxima on July 7 said investors included technology giant Google along with global energy company RWE.Proxima on Tuesday said the latest funding, which was led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, brings the company’s valuation to €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) and establishes it as the best-financed fusion company in Europe
Proxima was founded in April 2023, and spun out of the well-known Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. The company develops Quasi-Isodynamic (QI) stellarators, a type of magnetic confinement reactor, that builds on decades of research from the Wendelstein 7-X program.RWE’s investment of €25 million ($28.6 million) comes a few months after the German energy company signed a partnership agreement with Proxima to build a stellarator fusion power plant at the site of a former nuclear fission power plant in Gundremmingen, Bavaria. Google’s investment continues that company’s interest in fusion and nuclear energy in general as a source of long-term carbon-free energy.”Thanks to strong research and innovative start-ups such as Proxima Fusion, Germany can become a key player in nuclear fusion,” said Dr.
Markus Krebber, CEO of RWE AG. “It is now crucial that the federal and state governments shape the framework conditions in such a way as to specifically accelerate the development towards a commercial fusion reactor in Germany. RWE is contributing to this by investing in both magnetic and laser fusion companies and by making available our decommissioning sites, with their existing nuclear infrastructure, and our expertise in regulatory approvals. In doing so, we are creating significant time and cost advantages in the international race for fusion.”Proxima said the financing is part of the support needed to build what it calls Alpha, the company’s net-energy…