Nu Quantum has raised £7 million in a pre-Series A round.
The Cambridge firm’s mission is to build the networking infrastructure for quantum computers.
The round is led by Amadeus Capital Partners, Expeditions Fund and IQ Capital, with increased commitment from seed investors Ahren Capital, Seraphim Capital, University of Cambridge and Martlet.
New investors joining the round include Presidio Ventures backed by Sumitomo Corporation, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) and Deeptech Labs.
Today’s quantum computers have limited capabilities because their fundamental building blocks, qubits, are extremely hard to assemble in numbers large enough to solve truly valuable problems. Rather than try to create a single large core, a more efficient way to proceed is to interconnect many smaller cores using a scalable quantum network.
Nu Quantum’s product is a Quantum Networking Unit (QNU) capable of efficiently scaling discrete Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) to form a larger and more useful quantum computer.
This new funding follows a £2.1m seed round completed in September 2020, which jump-started the company’s significant expansion and ongoing recruitment activity. It will also deepen key partnerships with academia and corporations and accelerate the availability of robust and deployable systems.
“Large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing will bring about the technological revolution of our generation,” said Dr Carmen Palacios (pictured), founder and CEO. “We have built an exceptional team dedicated to the mission of building the quantum networking infrastructure necessary to make this a reality.
“We are grateful to the investors who share our vision for their support as we scale and commercialise our solution.”
Dr Manjari Chandran-Ramesh, partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, said: “The ability to apply quantum computing at scale is what’s needed to unlock the potential of this revolutionary advancement in processing power.
“Nu Quantum’s systems architecture approach, driven by quantum entanglement, is unique in the market today and has great commercial potential. Further, its product solution is poised to be able to adapt to any type of qubit technology, which makes the impact far-reaching.
“We are delighted to grow this partnership and work with new and existing investors on this next exciting chapter of Nu Quantum’s journey.”