The round was led by fund manager MIG Fonds. The country’s government-owned investment firm Tesi and other investors also participated. It brought IQM’s equity and grant funding to about $84m. Founded in 2018, IQM is developing quantum computers, which use superconducting circuits with zero electric resistance. The computers would be optimised for algorithms that today’s supercomputers are unable to perform, targeting sectors such as advanced materials and drug design.
The funding will mostly be dedicated to recruiting professionals for the sales and marketing team, but will also support quantum hardware and software development tailored to research and supercomputing hubs.
The quantum computing space is still in a relatively early stage of development. There have been very few disclosed corporate-backed rounds.
There may be much more unpublicised corporate involvement in fundraising than our data suggest, given the enormous disruptive potential of the technology. As more advances are made in this field, we expect to see more corporates being open about participating in these higher-risk-higher-reward tech deals.
