Google backs Proxima Fusion in €411 million round aimed at Europe’s first commercial fusion power plant

Google is backing Proxima Fusion, a Germany-based nuclear fusion startup, as part of a €411 million funding round that the company says is meant to help build what it calls Europe’s first commercial fusion power plant.

Fusion is the process of combining two hydrogen atoms to form one helium atom, releasing energy. Unlike today’s nuclear power fleet, which relies on fission, fusion is still not deployed commercially, and the industry is racing to solve complex physics and engineering challenges before any plant can reach the power grid.

Proxima’s effort uses stellarator technology, one of several approaches in the magnetic fusion field. Stellarators aim to confine plasma, the superheated, electrically charged state of matter where fusion reactions occur, using specially shaped magnetic fields.

In the round, which CNBC reported at €411 million (about $468 million), Proxima said it is working toward a fusion demonstrator that could be operational in the early 2030s. Proxima’s leadership framed the financing as proof that Europe can both invent fusion breakthroughs and fund the creation of globally competitive energy companies.

The investment group was led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with RWE and Google named as strategic investors, according to CNBC. Other venture capital participants included Plural, UVC Partners, Balderton and Cherry Ventures. Proxima also said in the announcement that the funding valued the company at about $2.7 billion.

In its statement, Proxima cofounder and CEO Francesco Sciortino said Europe is competing with the United States and China to reach the first fusion power plant, and that the financing reflects both the urgency and the opportunity of building a “generational” energy technology company.

A key near-term focus, based on the reporting, is expanding high-temperature superconducting capabilities, which are used to build and improve the magnets required for magnetic confinement. The company did not provide additional technical milestones in the coverage beyond the demonstrator timing.

Still, the announcement and related reporting leave important questions unanswered. While Proxima laid out a path toward a demonstrator in the early 2030s, details on the specific project site, financing structure beyond the equity round, and the engineering benchmarks required to scale to a commercial plant were not disclosed in the material surfaced here. Fusion timelines in particular are often revised as prototypes encounter performance and reliability constraints.