A German startup company, Proxima Fusion, has raised seven million euros ($7.48 million) in pre-seed funding to develop a fusion energy tool. The Munich-based company aims to design fusion power plants based on the stellarator concept and is looking to launch the first plant by the 2030s. Experts believe that technologies like stellarator could pave the way for the use of fusion power. Unlike the existing nuclear fission plants that produce energy by splitting atoms, fusion power works by combining the nuclei of two light atoms to form a bigger one, yielding more energy without long-lasting radioactive waste or greenhouse gas byproducts. To process fusion on earth, a magnetic field confines high-energy ionized matter called “plasma.” While tokamaks and stellarators are the two approaches that can do this, a stellarator has several advantages. It needs less injected power to sustain the plasma and is seen as an “attractive solution to manage excessive heat loads on material surfaces.” Despite the progress made in fusion technology, it could take around 25 years to develop stellarators for commercial power.