From left: Martin Kubie, Jonathan Schilling, Lucio Milanese, Jorrit Lion and Francesco Sciortino. Image: Proxima Fusion
The funding, which Proxima said is the largest-ever private investment in European fusion, brings the company’s valuation to €2.4bn.
German start-up Proxima Fusion has raised €411m in a financing round to aid the development of its fusion power technologies.
Proxima is designing and building fusion power plants using quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarators – machines that use magnetic fields to confine plasma – to bring “limitless, safe, clean energy to the grid”, according to the company.
Fusion power is a potential method of energy generation that uses heat released by nuclear fusion reactions. As a potential alternative to nuclear fission, which is used by current nuclear power plants, fusion offers advantages such as minimal high-level radioactive waste and lower safety risks, although it has not been deployed commercially yet due to technical challenges.
