UVC Partners participates in Proxima Fusion's €411 million Series A2
- UVC Partners commits €30 million, structured via its two Growth Funds, and a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) set up with KfW Capital (as part of the Germany Fund)
- Proxima Fusion is now the best-funded and most valuable fusion company in Europe, at a valuation of more than €2.4 billion
- Among the round's returning investors is UVC Partners, one of Proxima Fusion's earliest backers dating back to its €7 million seed round in May 2023
- Joining the round as strategic investors are RWE and Google. SPRIND and Burda Principal Investments also joined the round.
- XTX Ventures and East X Ventures led the round alongside SPRIND, and Burda Principal Investments
- Other returning investors include Plural, Balderton, Cherry Ventures, DST Global Partners, Brevan Howard Macro Venture, Lightspeed, DTCF, redalpine, Leitmotif, Elaia, CDP, Bayern Kapital, and the EIC Fund.
The capital arrives just three months after Proxima, the Free State of Bavaria, RWE and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics signed their February 2026 agreement to build Alpha, Proxima's net-energy stellarator demonstrator near Munich. That agreement tied Bavaria's €400 million public funding pledge to Proxima raising matching private capital – a threshold this round clears well ahead of schedule.
Dr. Francesco Sciortino, Co-Founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion, said: "Europe is racing with the United States and China to get to the first fusion power plant. Proxima's financing demonstrates that Europe can not only invent breakthrough technologies, but also build globally competitive companies around them. Investors recognize both the urgency and the opportunity of what we're doing and are backing us to develop a generational energy technology company."
Benjamin Erhart, Partner at UVC Partners, said: "We backed Proxima Fusion from its first round in 2023, when few investors took fusion seriously as more than long-term research. We saw the potential for something bigger: that fusion could become critical energy infrastructure, and that Proxima had the science and engineering to lead it. Three years later, that belief has moved from the margins to the mainstream. This round shows Europe can hold its own in the global fusion race – and has a real chance to win it, on its own technology and expertise."
The United States, China, and the United Kingdom are already committing billions to build up their own fusion industries. Proxima Fusion's round ranks among the largest private technology investments in Europe this year.
Christina Koch, Investment Associate, KfW Capital, said: “Fusion energy constitutes a vital component in safeguarding the future economic competitiveness of Germany's industrial sector. We regard Proxima Fusion as the pioneer of the stellarator approach, driven by a team whose outstanding scientific and operational achievements in such a brief period have been highly convincing. As part of the Germany-Fund, this structured co-investment alongside our long-standing partner UVC Partners provides the necessary financial foundation to anchor deep technological innovation in Germany.”
With this financing, Proxima will complete its Stellarator Model Coil, expand high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cable and magnet production, and continue developing the engineering and manufacturing systems required for stellarators – while further building out Europe's fusion supply chain. In less than three years, Proxima has secured more than €650 million in total funding, including €95 million in public grants.
About Proxima Fusion
Proxima Fusion is Europe's leading stellarator company and the first spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. The company is developing commercial fusion power plants based on the QI-HTS stellarator concept, building on the scientific breakthroughs of the Wendelstein 7-X programme.
With Alpha, Proxima is developing a net-energy fusion demonstrator targeted for the early 2030s, paving the way for Stellaris, the world's first commercial stellarator fusion power plant later that decade. This ambition is supported by the Alpha Alliance, a consortium of more than 50 industrial partners, and a distinguished Industrial Development Board.
Headquartered in Munich, with offices in Zurich and Oxford, Proxima employs around 200 people across engineering, science and operations. More information: www.proximafusion.com
About UVC Partners
UVC Partners backs Europe's most ambitious B2B tech founders building new category leaders. From DeepTech to AI, the firm has invested in breakout startups including Isar Aerospace, Proxima Fusion, Q.ANT, Aleph Alpha, Tacto, Flix, and FINN.
With more than €700 million in assets under management, UVC Partners invests up to €10 million initially across multiple stages from early to growth. Over the lifetime of the investment, €30 million per company can be deployed.
Beyond capital, UVC Partners' investment team is a "tech team for tech teams" – supporting founders in building and scaling market-leading companies. Through its unique access to UnternehmerTUM – Europe's leading innovation hub – the VC offers a powerful ecosystem of entrepreneurs, key corporate decision-makers, and top-tier researchers. UVC Partners' value-creation team provides direct access to a network of 1,000+ companies – potential customers and strategic partners.
About KfW Captial
KfW Capital, founded in 2018 as a subsidiary of KfW, aims to strengthen and further develop the German venture capital ecosystem. Since inception, it has invested around €3.3 billion in the VC market and participated in almost 160 funds (as of end of March 2026), thereby indirectly financing more than 3,300 start-ups. KfW Capital invests on a market-oriented, return-focused, cycle-independent and sector-agnostic basis, making it a key anchor investor in the German VC market. Beyond its equity activities, KfW Capital has helped deepen the market and attract new investors to the asset class. A major milestone was the launch of the Wachstumsfonds Deutschland, one of Europe’s largest VC fund-of-funds with a volume of around €1 billion. Its second generation, Wachstumsfonds II, started fundraising in April 2026. On behalf of the German Federal Government, KfW Capital coordinates the VC pillar of the Germany Fund, an initiative announced in December 2025 by the Federal Government and KfW Group to mobilise private capital and strengthen the competitiveness and future viability of the German economy. To foster knowledge transfer and networking, KfW Capital hosts four VC Academies per year on current topics and, together with partners, has developed and implemented ESG training programmes for VC funds.
