German fusion energy firm Proxima Fusion secures $150m financing

European fusion energy company Proxima Fusion has closed a €130m ($150m) Series A financing round, bringing its total funding to more than €185m in private and public capital.

The Series A round, the largest private fusion investment in Europe to date, was jointly led by Cherry Ventures and Balderton Capital, with substantial contributions from a consortium of investors including UVC Partners, DeepTech & Climate Fonds, Elaia Partners, Visionaries Tomorrow and redalpine.

redalpine led Proxima Fusion’s seed round in 2024, just one year earlier.

Proxima Fusion CEO and co-founder Francesco Sciortino stated: “Fusion has become a real, strategic opportunity to shift global energy dependence from natural resources to technological leadership. Proxima is perfectly positioned to harness that momentum by uniting a spectacular engineering and manufacturing team with world-leading research institutions, accelerating the path toward bringing the first European fusion power plant online in the next decade.”

This influx of capital bolsters Proxima’s mission to pioneer commercial fusion energy, a move supported by the European Union and national governments including Germany, the UK, France and Italy, who view fusion as critical for achieving energy independence and sustainable economic growth.

Cherry Ventures founding partner Filip Dames stated: “We back founders solving humanity’s hardest problems — and few are bigger than clean, limitless energy.”

“Proxima Fusion combines Europe’s scientific edge with commercial ambition, turning world-class research into one of the most promising fusion ventures globally. This is deep tech at its best, and a bold signal that Europe can lead on the world stage.”

Established in April 2023 as a spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Proxima Fusion maintains a strong public-private partnership with IPP.

The company’s approach to engineering is driven by simulations, utilising advanced computing and high-temperature superconducting (HTS) technologies. These strategies build upon the IPP’s Wendelstein 7-X stellarator experiment’s results.

In early 2025 Proxima Fusion, alongside IPP, KIT and other partners, unveiled Stellaris — a stellarator concept that integrates physics, engineering and maintenance.

The fresh investment will enable Proxima Fusion to complete its Stellarator Model Coil (SMC) by 2027, a crucial step in validating HTS technology for stellarators and promoting European HTS innovation.

The company is finalising the location for Alpha, its demonstration stellarator, and is in discussions with several European governments.

Alpha, expected to commence operations in 2031, will be pivotal for demonstrating net energy gain (Q>1) and advancing towards the first-of-its-kind fusion power plant.

Proxima Fusion is also expanding its team, which currently exceeds 80 members, across three locations: its Munich headquarters, the Paul Scherrer Institute near Zurich and the Culham fusion campus near Oxford.