Proxima Fusion

Proxima Fusion is a European fusion energy company founded in 2023 in Munich, Germany, as the first research spin-off from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.[1] Its stated goal is to design the first generation of fusion power plants using a quasi-isodynamic stellarator (QI stellarator).[2]

History

Proxima was founded in April 2023 by Francesco Sciortino, Lucio Milanese, Jorrit Lion, Jonathan Schilling, and Martin Kubie, former scientists and engineers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and X Development (was Google-X).[3]

The company initially raised €7.5 million in pre-seed funding from Plural Platform, UVC Partners, Visionaries Club, Wilbe, High-Tech Gründerfonds, and others, followed by a €20 million seed round led by redalpine, with participation from Bayern Kapital, DeepTech & Climate Fonds, and the Max Planck Foundation.[4] It has since been awarded more public funding from the European Innovation Council (source) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany).[5]

On June 28, 2024, Proxima announced that it would partner with the Paul Scherrer Institute to develop high-temperature superconducting magnets for its stellarators.[6]

In February 2025, Proxima presented a concept for a commercial fusion power plant named Stellaris.[7] That concept has been compared in impact to the US ARC fusion reactor tokamak concept published in 2014.[8] A smaller prototype stellarator aiming at net fusion energy is planned for 2031.[9]

In June 2025, Proxima Fusion announced that they received €130 million funding in a Series A round.[10][11] In September 2025, they received an added €15m extension.[12]

Technology

Proxima is designing QI stellarators, a magnetic confinement fusion approach in which toroidal currents cancel out to zero, resulting in stable and continuous operation.[13] The company is leveraging recent advances in stellarator optimization, computational design, and superconductivity to build on the achievements of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator experiment at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics.[14]

See also

• List of nuclear fusion companies

External links