World Fund leads EUR 128m raise for quantum computing group IQM

The funding is aimed at expanding the company’s international business and accelerating product development to help tackle the climate crisis. It follows a EUR 39m Series A1 round in 2020 and includes part of a EUR 35m venture loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced earlier this year, according to a press release.

Other investors in the round included Bayern Kapital, EIC Fund, OurCrowd, QCI SPV, Tofino and Varma, as well as existing shareholders Maki.vc, Matadero QED, MIG Fonds, OpenOcean, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capital GmbH, Tencent, Tesi, and Vsquared.

With this new capital raise, IQM is dedicating resources for co-designing quantum computer processors to provide solutions to tackle the climate crisis and promote sustainable development, according to a press release. The company’s computers could enable innovation in areas such as energy grid optimisation and climate modelling. IQM is currently exploring novel approaches to develop better battery solutions with a leading car manufacturer, as well as ground-breaking methods for new material design and quantum algorithms that can be used to tackle climate problems.

World Fund invests in technologies with a Climate Performance Potential (CPP) of removing 100 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere annually by 2040. The fund’s CPP calculations show that the battery performance and adoption use cases alone would enable IQM’s technology to exceed this threshold, according to a press release.

The new funding will also be used to expand IQM’s international business operations, accelerate research and pioneer new product development. IQM is delivering full-stack quantum systems, which can deliver supercharged, precise computer power that is significantly more advanced than any supercomputer. This technology is expected to improve drug discovery, transform encryption and data protection and predict financial systems, according to a press release.

Company
Launched in 2018, IQM provides on-premise quantum computers for supercomputing data centres and research labs and offers full access to its hardware. Its computers are used by research laboratories and supercomputing centres to address problems in healthcare, finance, logistics and chemistry. The company’s co-design strategy enables industrial customers to work closely with IQM using application-specific processors with a co-design approach. IQM is building Finland’s first 54-qubit quantum computer with VTT, and an 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 accelerator for future scientific research. IQM has over 180+ employees with offices in Paris, Madrid, Munich and Espoo.

People
IQM − Sierk Poetting (chairman); Jan Goetz (CEO and co-founder).
World Fund − Daria Saharova (founding partner).

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