July 7 (Reuters) – Magnetic fusion start-up Proxima Fusion has raised €411 million ($469.69 million) from investors including Alphabet’s Google and German utility RWE as part of a financing round, the Munich-based start-up said on Tuesday.
• “Proxima’s financing demonstrates that Europe can not only invent breakthrough technologies, but also build globally competitive companies around them,” Francesco Sciortino, Proxima Fusion’s chief executive, said in a statement
• The round was led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with RWE and Google as strategic investors, the company said
• It added that the financing round brings Proxima Fusion’s valuation to €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion)
• German utility company RWE invested €25 million euros in the funding round
• RWE signed an agreement with Proxima to partner on building the first stellarator fusion power plant on the site of a former nuclear fission power plant in Gundremmingen, Bavaria
• Unlike the burning of fossil fuels or the fission process of existing nuclear power plants, nuclear fusion offers the possibility of abundant energy without pollution, radioactive waste or greenhouse gases, replicating with lasers or magnets the reaction that fuels the sun
($1 = 0.8750 euros)
(Reporting by Danny Callaghan, Editing by Friederike Heine)
