QuantWare, a quantum processor company from Delft that started at TU Delft’s QuTech research institute, has raised $178 million in Series B funding. The company is building what it says will be the world’s largest dedicated quantum chip factory and pushing toward processors 100 times bigger than anything commercially available today.
The round was oversubscribed and, according to QuantWare, is the largest ever raised by a dedicated quantum processor company.
New investors in the round include Intel Capital, IQT, and ETF Partners. Existing backers like FORWARD.one, Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund, InnovationQuarter Capital, Ground State Ventures, and Graduate Ventures also took part.
The quantum startup, founded in 2021 by Matt Rijlaarsdam and Alessandro Bruno, designs, builds, and sells the physical chips, called quantum processing units, or QPUs, that quantum computers run on. It has already shipped to more than 50 customers across 20 countries, making it the largest commercial QPU supplier by volume.
Most quantum chips today are produced in small quantities inside university labs or proprietary facilities that serve only their own machines. IBM builds chips for IBM computers. Google builds chips for Google computers. Companies trying to build quantum systems of their own have almost nowhere to turn for supply.
QuantWare acts as a neutral supplier. Its VIO platform supports chiplet designs from other companies, so competitors and customers can use QuantWare’s manufacturing to scale up their qubit designs.
Its approach has two main parts. First, it uses a modular chip design that lets quantum processors be built from smaller pieces, called chiplets, rather than as a single large unit. The second part is a dedicated factory that boosts production capacity by twenty times.
“In superconducting quantum computing, scale is increasingly constrained by routing, packaging, and manufacturability. QuantWare recognised that early and built VIO to address it. That combination of technical ambition and execution positions them to become the company on which the future of superconducting quantum systems will be built,” says Kike Miralles, investment director at Intel Capital.
“Quantum computing is on the verge of an inflexion point, and is a strategic priority for nations around the world. QuantWare has both the breakthrough scaling technology in VIO and the requisite industrial capability in KiloFab. The company is poised to play a key role in shaping the global quantum supply chain,” adds J.D. Englehart, senior director at IQT.
The company plans to use the money to build the world’s largest dedicated quantum chip factory and to develop processors that are 10 times larger than those currently on the market.
TFN has contacted QuantWare for comment on the diversity.
