{"podcast":{"title":"Scaling Europe","slug":"scaling-europe-7780754","podcast_index_feed_id":7780754,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/108a8a74c/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scaling-europe","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/44302379/44302379-1756114015030-846dc0246eba9.jpg","author":"Sebastian Johnson","episode_count":223,"summary":"Every week Seb Johnson sits down with 5 of Europe's best builders and investors to talk about what's going on in European Tech. Prior guests include the founders of Lovable, Cleo, Voi an Zilch, as well as top VCs from 20VC, Index, Balderton and Creandum.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-27T22:17:10.818712+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754"},"episode":{"title":"Francesco Sciortino, Co-Founder & CEO of Proxima Fusion: Building the critical power infrastructure for clean energy","slug":"francesco-sciortino-co-founder-ceo-of-proxima-fusion-building-the-critical-power-infrastructure-for-clean-energy","published_at":"2026-07-16T09:42:16+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754/francesco-sciortino-co-founder-ceo-of-proxima-fusion-building-the-critical-power-infrastructure-for-clean-energy","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scaling-europe/episodes/Francesco-Sciortino--Co-Founder--CEO-of-Proxima-Fusion-Building-the-critical-power-infrastructure-for-clean-energy-e3m2prh","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/108a8a74c/podcast/play/122823985/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-6-14%2F427942219-44100-2-39e2d7fa1c6fe.mp3","summary":"Proxima Fusion recently raised €411m at a €2.4bn valuation, the largest funding round in European fusion. The company is building a fusion reactor designed to produce clean, safe energy continuously, without the risk of a runaway reaction. Francesco Sciortino is Co-Founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion. The company has around 200 people working across Munich, Zurich and Oxford. Proxima's next milestone is a full-scale magnet that will prove the reactor design works, expected by the end of 2027. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Lovable: https://lovable.dev/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:09 - Proxima Fusion's €411m raise 0:50 - What fusion actually is 4:04 - Why Proxima bets on stellarators over tokamaks 9:29 - What's changed to bring investors on board 11:42 - Inside the Bavarian government partnership 16:12 - The next milestone: the Stellarator Model Coil 18:29 - Publishing the Stellaris power plant design 20:38 - Supply chain risk for fusion magnets","meta_description":"Proxima Fusion recently raised €411m at a €2.4bn valuation, the largest funding round in European fusion. The company is building a fusion reactor designe…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1446,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/scaling-europe-7780754/episodes/francesco-sciortino-co-founder-ceo-of-proxima-fusion-building-the-critical-power-infrastructure-for-clean-energy/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754/francesco-sciortino-co-founder-ceo-of-proxima-fusion-building-the-critical-power-infrastructure-for-clean-energy.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}