Plural doubled down its investment in German Proxima Fusion
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Plural, founded by Estonian entrepreneurs Sten Tamkivi (founder of software company Teleport and former Skype executive) and Taavet Hinrikus (founder of money transfer service Wise), has doubled down on its investment in German tech company Proxima Fusion, which is developing a stellarator fusion power plant.
The €20M seed round was led by Swiss VC Redalpine, with participation from German government-backed Bayern Kapital, DeepTech & Climate Fonds, and the Max Planck Foundation. Existing investors German UVC Partners, German public-private investment firm High-Tech Gründerfonds, UK VC Wilbe, and German fund TOMORROW, launched by Visionaries Club also participated in the round.
Based in Munich in 2023 by former scientists and engineers from the Max Planck IPP, MIT, and Google-X Francesco Sciortino, Lucio Milanese, Jorrit Lion, Martin Kubie, and Jonathan Schilling, Proxima Fusion is a spin-out of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). In Greifswald, where the branch of IPP is, government-funded scientists have been building a stellarator Wendelstein 7-X over the past 27 years, with the total cost of research at €1,3B.
A stellarator is a device that forms magnetic cages for high-energy matter, and it is an alternative to the tokamak device, pioneered by Soviet scientists in the 1950s. A stellarator and a tokamak use huge magnets to suspend a floating mass of hydrogen plasma as it is heated to extreme temperatures so the atomic nuclei fuse releasing energy. The twisted structure of the stellarator is complicated because it consists of magnets of odd shapes, and requires precise engineering. However, it produces a stable plasma that could enable scientists to sustain the fusion reaction for a long time. The company also uses AI technology to simulate the behavior of the plasma, bringing the prospect of viable nuclear fusion nearer.
The reason, why nuclear fusion is drawing the attention of scientists and entrepreneurs is that it can produce energy at lower costs and without radioactive waste.
Proxima Fusion will use the investment to hire more engineers and physicists for its team in Munich, expand its public-private partnerships in Europe, and start building its first generation of fusion power plants.
Founded in 2022 and managed by Sten Tamkivi, Taavet Hinrikus, Ian Hogarth, Khaled Helioui, and Carina Namih, Plural focuses on leading early-stage rounds between €1M and €10M.
