Proxima Fusion joins the club of well-funded nuclear contenders with €130M Series A

Summary

Commercial nuclear fusion power isn’t a reality yet. But venture capital is flowing into startups that promise that clean, safe, and virtually limitless energy is no longer just a distant dream. Most fusion companies that have raised over $100 million are based in the United States. Not Proxima Fusion, a German startup that has just secured a €130 million Series A round of funding (approximately $148 million) led by Balderton Capital and Cherry Ventures. This brings Proxima’s public and private funding to date over €185 million ($200 million), increasing its chances to be one of Europe’s top contenders in this race for an alternative to fission, one which does not depend on uranium or other imported fissile materials used in current nuclear reactors. The pursuit isn’t solely for scientific prestige; it is deeply intertwined with energy security. “Wait for the early 2030s and you will see fusion giants in each geopolitical block,” Proxima’s CEO and co-founder Francesco Sciortino predicted in an interview with TechCrunch. Until now, Proxima didn’t have the means to become such a giant; its April 2024 seed round was only €20 million ($21.7 million). Since then Proxima published its plans for a working fusion power plant in a peer-reviewed journal. The paper made the case for stellarators, a type of reactor that uses magnetic fields to confine hot plasma into a ring long enough for fusion to occur. Unlike their main alternative, tokamaks, stellarators’ twisted rings don’t require a plasma current, making them more stable. Building upon its proximity to the world’s largest stellarator, Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, Proxima came up with its own Stellaris design, a significant milestone detailed in the paper. Image Credits:Proxima Fusion The hefty new funding was partly a reflection of reaching this milestone in half the time it had originally told investors, Sciortino said. With an oversubscribed round, the company had its pick. “Now we have the right kind of partners not ju...