Google and RWE back Proxima Fusion’s record $468M round

German nuclear fusion startup Proxima Fusion announced on Tuesday a €411 million ($468 million) financing round that values the company at €2.4 billion, making it the largest-ever private investment in European fusion and establishing Proxima as the continent's best-funded fusion venture.reuters+2

Big Tech and Big Energy Join Forces

The round was led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with Alphabet's ↘ 0.41% Google and German utility RWE joining as strategic investors. KfW Capital, SPRIND, and Burda Principal Investments also participated alongside returning backers including Plural, Balderton, DST Global Partners, Lightspeed, and Brevan Howard Macro Venture.esgtoday+2

Google's participation reflects its growing power demands driven by AI infrastructure expansion. The company has set a goal of running its operations on carbon-free energy every hour of the day, a target it has acknowledged is becoming harder to reach as its data center footprint grows faster than the grid decarbonizes. RWE's investment follows a recent partnership agreement with Proxima to build the first stellarator fusion power plant at the site of a former nuclear fission plant in Gundremmingen, Bavaria.esgtoday

From Max Planck to Commercial Fusion

Founded in early 2023 as a spinout of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Proxima is developing stellarators — doughnut-shaped devices that use magnetic fields to confine superheated plasma and achieve fusion conditions. The company's QI-HTS stellarator design eliminates current-driven instabilities common to other fusion approaches.esgtoday

The new capital will fund construction of Alpha, a net-energy stellarator demonstrator near Munich targeted for completion in the early 2030s, paving the way for Proxima's first commercial power plant, Stellaris, later that decade.esgtoday

A Continental Competition

"Europe is racing with the United States and China to get to the first fusion power plant," CEO Francesco Sciortino said. "Proxima's financing demonstrates that Europe can not only invent breakthrough technologies, but also build globally competitive companies around them."esgtoday

The deal ranks among the largest climate technology investments of 2026 and places Proxima in the top tier of global fusion ventures alongside U.S.-based competitors that have attracted billions in recent years.investing+1