Francesco Sciortino is the co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion.

In July, Proxima closed a €411M round at a €2.4B valuation, the largest fusion financing in European history - Cherry co-led the company's Series A and invested again in this round. The capital funds Alpha, the net-energy stellarator demonstrator Proxima is building near Munich, on the road to Stellaris, the first commercial stellarator power plant, planned for the site of a former fission plant in Bavaria.

Filip sat down with Francesco to talk about why fusion's moment is now, how a 3-year-old company recruits from SpaceX and Tesla, and what Europe still lacks.

‍

4 cuts:

On the machine‍

"We look at rockets and think that rockets are pretty simple."‍

The stellarator's motor coil, Francesco says, will be the most advanced magnet humanity has ever made. The complexity is the moat, and AI-driven engineering is why it has become buildable now.

On talent‍

"People move, first of all, because of what it means that we're doing. And people also join because they see the others that have joined before."

‍Stellarators are one of the few frontier technologies where Europe leads outright, and the best people can tell.

On why Europe hasn't built giants‍

"The reason why we haven't built great companies is not bureaucracy. It's not our public sector. It's that we have been lacking founders that shot high enough."

His fix is cultural - role models, capital for crazy stuff, and refusing to sell early.

On what Europe needs next‍

"The number of people that are willing to be uncompromising, to go full out for something that is in revenue in 5 years, where your stock options are the real value that you get, there are still too few people doing that kind of stuff."

Watch the full conversation here.

‍