Project Study with Proxima Fusion.
📌 Key facts
💡 Background
Proxima Fusion is Europe's fastest-growing fusion company, building the first generation of fusion power plants based on quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarators. In July 2026, Proxima raised €411 million - one of the largest rounds ever raised by a European deep tech company. With this money, they are pursuing an ambitious roadmap to build the Alpha demonstration stellarator by the early 2030s, and the Stellaris power plant by the late 2030s.
Building the Stellarator requires solving technical challenges across high-temperature superconducting magnets, cryogenics, computational design and optimization, precision manufacturing, and materials. Several of these solutions also have commercial value in other industries. Identifying which of them to commercialize, for whom, and when, is thus a highly relevant strategic question.
✨The Project
Proxima Fusion will share a portfolio of technologies and capabilities developed on the path to Stellaris. Your task is to find out where these could create commercial value in the European market within the next few years, and to build the evidence base for that recommendation.
Concretely, you will:
- Map and benchmark the selected technologies against existing solutions and competing providers in Europe and beyond
- Size and structure candidate markets, understanding who buys, how much, through which channels, under which regulatory conditions
- Conduct expert and customer interviews with potential industrial buyers, partners, and domain experts
- Develop and prioritize target segments, including entry barriers, willingness to pay, and time-to-revenue
- Deliver a recommendation to Proxima's leadership on which segments to pursue, in which sequence, and why
🎯 Your Goals
The project has one central question: are the technologies you were given commercially viable in the European market over the next few years, and if so, in which segments and on what timeline? At the end you should be able to give Proxima a clear answer, backed by your benchmarking, competitor and market analysis, regulatory checks, and interviews. If the answer for a given technology is no, that is a useful result too, as long as you can show how you got there.
What you should have produced by the end of the project:
- A recommendation for each technology in the portfolio: pursue, park, or drop, with your reasoning and main assumptions written out
- For the technologies you recommend pursuing, a ranked shortlist of target segments. You will agree the ranking criteria with Proxima early on; typical ones are market size and growth, competitive position, time to first revenue, and fit with the Stellaris roadmap
- The underlying analysis: benchmarking and competitor overview, market sizing with sources and assumptions documented, regulatory and certification requirements per segment, and your interview findings, including the points where interviews contradicted what you expected going in
- For each prioritized segment, a view on how Proxima would enter it: direct sales, licensing, partnership or joint development, plus the barriers, the capabilities Proxima would need to build, and what customers appear willing to pay
- A final presentation to Proxima's leadership and a written report that meets the requirements of the Chair for Strategy and Organization
🎓 Your Profile
- Genuine curiosity about deep tech, energy, and hardware
- Willingness and ability to get comfortable with technical concepts quickly
- Comfortable conducting interviews with senior industry experts and structuring ambiguous problems
- Strong analytical skills and the ability to work independently in a small team
- Available full time for 3–4 consecutive months
- Background in (fusion / high energy) physics is helpful but not a requirement
📄 Requirements
- Duration: 3-4 months
- Starting date: September - November 2026
- Group: 3–5 students
- Language: Exceptional English skills are essential, as you will work in a group of international stakeholders
📝 How to Apply
If you are interested, please contact Philipp Sonnenschein and Julien Warnery via email (Subject: Application TUM Proxima Fusion Project Study - [Name]) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also outline your relevant experience (technical and commercial) and your ideal start date.
We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!
🗨️ Contact
Philipp Sonnenschein (Chair for Strategy & Organization)
Julien Warnery (Proxima Fusion)