128 million Euros! Tencent participant company secures largest quantum computing funding in Europe

On July 22, IQM Quantum Computers (IQM), the European leader in superconducting quantum computing, announced that it has closed a €128 million Series A2 funding round led by the World Fund. The funds will be used to expand IQM's international operations and accelerate product development, with a focus on developing quantum processors to help combat the climate crisis. This is the largest financing ever raised by a European quantum computing company.

The round includes Bayern Kapital, EIC Fund, OurCrowd, QCI SPV, Tofino and Varma, as well as existing investors Maki.vc, Matadero QED, MIG Fonds, OpenOcean, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capital GmbH, Tencent, Tesi and Vsquared. Tencent first participated in IQM in a €39 million Series A1 round in 2020 and continues to follow up in this round. They also received a €35 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) in April this year. At this point, IQM has raised over 200 million euros.

01 Groundbreaking quantum hardware for future computing

Since its founding in 2018, IQM has become the fastest growing quantum computer company, the European leader in superconducting quantum computer manufacturing, and the only European company already offering a full-stack quantum system.

As an enabling technology capable of delivering ultra-powerful, accurate computer capabilities far more advanced than any supercomputer, it promises to improve drug discovery, transform encryption and data protection, and predict financial systems.

IQM has one of the largest teams of world-class quantum experts in continental Europe, and its in-house deployment of quantum computers is used by research labs and supercomputing centers to solve challenging problems in healthcare, finance, logistics and chemistry. The company's innovative co-design strategy also enables industrial customers to work closely with IQM to realize quantum benefits based on application-specific processors.

02 Quantum's breakthrough potential in addressing the climate crisis

Since the company's inception, IQM's mission statement has been to use its technology for the benefit of humanity and, by extension, to solve the climate crisis.

The lack of attempts by governments and global companies around the world to "limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2050" makes it increasingly clear that drastic action is needed to discover solutions that can really make an impact. In the future, quantum computing may be an integral part of finding solutions to the climate problem, as the technology is capable of simulating solutions that cannot be achieved with current levels of computing power. McKinsey predicts that climate technologies developed using quantum computing could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by seven billion tons per year by 2035. This could include helping to decarbonize electricity and fuels, reshaping industrial operations, and reforming food and forestry.

With this new financing, IQM will also devote resources to co-designing quantum computer processors to provide solutions to the climate crisis and promote sustainable development to improve lives around the world.

Because IQM's quantum computer will provide a leap in computing power, its technology could enable innovation in areas such as energy grid optimization and climate modeling. The company is already exploring partnerships with a leading automaker to develop better battery solutions, as well as new material designs and breakthrough approaches to quantum algorithms that can be used to solve climate problems. This is just the beginning of IQM's climate goals. Keep in mind that the World Fund invests only in technologies with climate performance potential (CPP): that is, removing 100 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year by 2040. The fund's CPP calculations show that battery performance and adoption use cases alone would put IQM's technology over that threshold.

For more information on how quantum technology will play a role in mitigating the climate crisis, read the Photonics Box article, "How Can Quantum Technology Address Climate Change?

03 The Quantum Decade

With the next decade expected to be the decade of quantum technology, governments and organizations are investing now to prepare for a quantum future. IQM is already working with organizations such as Atos, VTT and Infineon to develop solutions that take advantage of this transformative technology. To help continue its work, this new funding will be used to expand its international business operations, accelerate research and pioneer new product development.

IQM's Second Generation Quantum Processor

Dr. Sierk Poetting, Chairman of IQM, said, "This funding round is an important milestone that recognizes our recent technology milestones and helps accelerate IQM's development efforts. We value the continued participation of our existing investors and welcome new investors to this strong group."

Daria Saharova, founding partner of World Fund, said, "Quantum computing has the potential to drive the breakthroughs needed to solve the climate crisis. We are proud to lead this funding round and support IQM's ambition to provide a quantum advantage for climate and sustainability goals. This investment is in line with our commitment to support only companies with the highest climate performance potential (CPP) so that our portfolio can reduce emissions by 2 billion tons per year by 2040 - equivalent to 4% of all global emissions. We are excited to support the IQM team and its founders, who have meticulously built IQM with a strong local business model focused on the High Performance Computing Center and the National Quantum Laboratory. We look forward to helping them move to a global leadership position."

Nicklas Bergman, EIC Fund, said, "We have been following the quantum computing space for more than a decade. With direct investment capital, the EIC Fund wants to support IQM in its mission to build the first 1000 quantum bit computer and establish European leadership in quantum technology."

About IQM.

IQM is the European leader in building quantum computers. IQM provides local quantum computers to supercomputing data centers and research labs, and offers full access to their hardware. For industrial customers, IQM offers quantum advantages through a unique application-specific co-design approach. IQM is working with VTT to build Finland's first 54-quantum-bit computer, and the IQM-led consortium (Q-Exa) is also building a quantum computer in Germany: this computer will be integrated into an HPC supercomputer to create a quantum gas pedal for future scientific research.

About the World Fund (World Fund).

The World Fund is the largest, European-focused climate venture capital fund. From energy, food, agriculture and land use, to building materials, manufacturing and transportation, the World Fund is investing in European climate technologies with a Climate Performance Potential (CPP) of at least 10,000,000 tons of CO2-equivalent emission reductions per year.

Reference link：

https://meetiqm.com/articles/press-releases/european-leader-in-quantum-computing-iqm-raises-128m-led-by-world-fund/