Nu Quantum hails 'record' $60m Series A raise as it targets $1 trillion QC market

The massively oversubscribed round was led by National Grid Partners and included participation from Gresham House Ventures and Morpheus Ventures - all new backers; there was follow-on support from existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital, Ahren Capital, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, East Innovate, NSSIF and Sumitomo (Presidio Ventures).

Nu Quantum says it is the largest financing round ever raised by a pure-play quantum networking company and the largest quantum Series A in the UK to date.

The funding will accelerate Nu Quantum’s mission to reach fault tolerance by interconnecting quantum processors into a more powerful distributed quantum computer, unlocking aprojected $1 trillion quantum computing market.

Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that will always be beyond the reach of any classical supercomputer. Applications could include modelling molecules on an atomic level to simulation and optimisation of systems with millions of interdependent parameters, like electric grids or financial markets.

Until now, the quantum computing industry has focused on improving individual quantum processors. But achieving real utility and fault tolerance will require scaling to systems with 1,000x more qubits than exist today.

Nu Quantum’s quantum networking stack opens a new approach: enabling quantum computers to scale by weaving individual processors into a modular, distributed computing fabric. Networking has played a critical role in the classical computing industry, enabling Cloud and AI data centres and High Performance Computing.

Nu Quantum’s belief is that the mass commercialisation of quantum computing will happen via distributed architectures in quantum data centres, underpinned by Nu Quantum’s networking infrastructure - the Entanglement Fabric. Crucially, Nu Quantum’s architecture is adaptable to support scaling for multiple different Qubit modalities.

Dr. Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, Founder and CEO of Nu Quantum, said: “When we launched seven years ago, very few were thinking about networked or distributed quantum computing as a strategy for scaling, but we saw it as one of the most urgent and challenging outstanding problems in the industry, and set out to solve it.

“We’ve made great strides in shaping the market and the technology since then. As we’ve grown, I’m proud we have created a culture defined by fearless innovation, and fuelled by collaboration and diversity under a shared mission to accelerate quantum computing for good. This investment validates our vision and the maturity of our solution as the path to scaling. I’d like to warmly thank the Nu Quantum team for their achievements, and our investors for their support.”

Steve Smith, Chief Strategy and Regulation Officer of National Grid and President of National Grid Partners, commented: “We are closer to quantum computing having an impact on businesses and lives than many people think. Nu Quantum is at the forefront of bringing this powerful technology closer to market and using it to solve real-world challenges today.”

Dr Hemant Mardia, Chair of Nu Quantum said: “Photonic networking has been fundamental to the scaling of data centres. Under Carmen’s visionary leadership, Nu Quantum is developing the same paradigm for quantum computing. This exceptional Series A funding will accelerate delivery of our roadmap and international expansion of our talented team.”

As well as its Cambridge headquarters, Nu Quantum also has a US office in Los Angeles and operations at the Harwell Campus near Oxford.