Google has joined a €411 million ($468 million) funding round for German startup Proxima Fusion, backing the company’s ambition to build Europe’s first commercial nuclear fusion power plant.
The investment is part of Proxima’s latest financing round, led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with RWE, Google, Plural, UVC Partners, Balderton and Cherry Ventures also participating. The deal values the Munich-based company at $2.7 billion.
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Why Fusion Is Drawing Attention
Nuclear fusion has long been viewed as one of the energy sector’s biggest breakthroughs. By fusing hydrogen atoms into helium, the process has the potential to generate vast amounts of carbon-free electricity with far less long-lived radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power.
Despite its promise, fusion remains commercially unproven, with companies still working to overcome significant engineering and materials challenges before the technology can operate at scale.
Unlike fusion, today’s nuclear power stations generate electricity through nuclear fission, which splits atoms to release energy.
Google Expands Its Fusion Investments
The latest investment strengthens Google’s growing presence in the fusion sector as the company looks for long-term sources of clean, reliable electricity to support its expanding energy needs.
“Europe is racing with the United States and China to get to the first fusion power plant,” said Proxima co-founder and CEO Francesco Sciortino. “This financing demonstrates that Europe can not only invent breakthrough technologies, but also build globally competitive companies around them.”
Building A European Fusion Champion
Proxima is developing stellarator reactors, a fusion design widely regarded as more complex than the better-known tokamak but potentially capable of delivering greater long-term operational stability.
The company aims to complete a fusion demonstrator in the early 2030s before developing a commercial power plant later in the decade.
The new funding will be used to expand production of high-temperature superconducting magnets and cables, strengthen manufacturing capabilities and accelerate hiring across engineering, operations and industrial development.
Competition Is Intensifying
While Proxima is now Europe’s best-funded fusion startup, U.S. competitors continue to lead in total capital raised.
According to Dealroom, Commonwealth Fusion Systems has secured $2.9 billion in funding after raising $863 million last year. Helion Energy, backed by Sam Altman, has raised a total of $1.5 billion following a $465 million financing round announced last month.
Google is also an investor in Commonwealth Fusion Systems and signed an electricity purchase agreement with the company in 2025, contingent on its first commercial fusion plant becoming operational.
At the time, Google described fusion as a technology with the potential to provide “clean, abundant and inherently safe” energy, while acknowledging that bringing it to commercial scale remains an immense technical challenge.
